NASA: 'Mega-Earth' located 560 light-years away

NASA: &#039;Mega-Earth&#039; located 560 light-years away

(Image credit: Twitter/NASAKepler)

last updated 8 January 2015

With 17 times the mass of Earth, a new planet that has been discovered can't even be classified as a "Super-Earth." Instead, the planet — officially named Kepler-10c — is a "Mega-Earth."

NASA announced the planet's discovery on Monday at an astronomy meeting in Boston. Previously, scientists believed that any planet that was bigger than 10 Earth masses would have so much hydrogen gas it would be like Saturn or Jupiter. However, Kepler-10c "suggests that plus-size planets can stay rocky, with clearly defined surfaces, rather than becoming gaseous and bloated," explains The Washington Post's Joel Achenbach.

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Kepler-10c was formed roughly 11 billion years ago, prior to when scientists thought rocky planets existed. It is 560 light-years away, and was discovered by the Kepler telescope, which launched in 2009 and examines small patches of the sky, searching for the dimming of starlight; if there is a regular pattern of dimming, it could mean that a planet is passing over the star. Read more about how Kepler-10c was discovered at The Washington Post.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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