A steamy 'waterworld' six times bigger than Earth has been discovered orbiting a faint star 40 light years away.

The planet is believed to be too hot to sustain Earth-type life, but could consist of 75 per cent water. Evidence suggests it has an atmosphere, and astronomers believe it to be more Earth-like than any 'exoplanet' previously found outside the Solar System.

The planet is classified as a 'super-Earth', half-way in size between small rocky planets such the Earth and ice giants similar to Uranus and Neptune. Although its parent star is a dim 'red dwarf' 3,000 times less bright than our sun, it hugs the star so closely that its surface temperature is 200C.

At a distance of just 1.3million miles, the planet makes one year-long orbit of the star every 38 hours.

The planet was discovered circling the star GJ1214 with an array of small ground-based telescopes no larger than those used by many amateurs.

The MEarth Project employs eight identical 16-inch diameter telescopes monitoring a 2,000 red dwarf stars. Red dwarfs are the most common type of star in the Milky Way galaxy.

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Source

Keep in mind this is conjecture based on the Doppler detection principle and the summation that an atmosphere of this composition MAY exist simply from observations of the parent star when light intensity is obscured by this exo-planet passing in front of it ...this cannot be confirmed until Hubble gets a closer look (below) .....b


from the link in the OP:
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