Your Facebook feed has probably lit up today with news of a “super-Earth” in our solar system. But it probably didn’t explain what it is or why it’s so cool. So, we’ll step in and do it for you!
Despite what it sounds like, a super-Earth is not a planet full of superheroes. It’s a planet with a mass greater than Earth, but less heavy than, say, Uranus. Uranus is about 15 times as heavy as Earth, so any super-Earths would fall about halfway between Earth and Uranus. In weight only, of course, we’re not going to speculate what’s between Earth and Uranus in other respects.
And it’s not entirely clear that we’ve found one, just yet. But the most plausible answer to an astronomical puzzle is that there’s a super-Earth in our outer solar system. Essentially, astronomers are saying they’ve found something that might be a feature of Alpha Centauri, except that it doesn’t show up on the right telescopes, or possibly a really distant brown dwarf, but that doesn’t quite work either. In other words, this boils down to “this is our best guess.”
While there’s argument this should be called a planet, if it’s real, we’re not there yet. So far, the only thing being claimed is there’s a big-ass rock on the edge of our solar system we haven’t seen before. And even that claim might be somewhat dubious. But at least take comfort in knowing that it’s not a planet full of supervillains. Just possibly a Death Star.
(via Forbes)