How about “rocky”? :)
Another word they could use is “terrestrial”.
I agree with Gabby Johnson - they’re trying to make extra-solar earths more of a possibility than they are.
>>I agree with Gabby Johnson - they’re trying to make extra-solar earths more of a possibility than they are.<<
Yep, I clicked on this thread because of “super earth” in the title. If they had said they merely found another large planet I would not have clicked on it.
The technology at this point may not be quite good enough to detect a ‘earth-sized’ planet within the Goldilocks Zone. This planet is the smallest they have found so far. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any smaller, it’s just that they cannot yet detect them. If you read the full article, another team, using a different system, analyzed this same planet and their indications are that it is even smaller than Spitzer’s team’s calculations.........
Actually our ability to see earth sized planets is very limited. As our instruments improve we may see many that are just the right distant from their suns and they right size to be compared to earth. As for this planet being to big that would depend. If life was created(or evolved if you are an evo)on this planet it would be able to walk around despite the heavy gravity. The cold however might pose a bigger problem.
Scientists probably do want to find earth like planets and exaggerate the ones they do find but sooner or later they will find them.