Image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC).
Joel Kontinen
Researchers
have found a giant mega-Earth that is 23 times more passive than Earth, It
is build on rock.
Called GJ
523b, the exoplanet is about 2.5 times wider than
Earth but packs roughly 23 times our planet's mass into that relatively compact
size. Worlds this large and dense are sometimes referred to as
"mega-Earths," an informal term for unusually massive, predominantly
rocky planets. GJ 523b's high density suggests it contains relatively little
atmosphere despite being large enough that astronomers would normally expect it
to have accumulated a substantial gaseous envelope, according to a statement
from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
"This
isn't what we expected at all," Max Kroft, lead author of the study, said
in the statement. "Dense planets like this
aren't uncommon, but they're usually small rocky planets similar to Earth or
Mercury. This planet is two and a half times bigger than the Earth."
The team
calculated that GJ 523b has a mass about 23.5 times that of Earth, a radius
2.55 times larger and a density of about 126.82 grams per cubic inch. It
circles its star every 17.75 days. Evolutionists claim that
the planetary system is also relatively young, at an estimated nearly 170 million years old, according to the study.
That
combination of size, mass and youth poses a puzzle for planet formation models.
Planets begin by building cores of rock and metal, which can then pull in
hydrogen and helium from the disk of gas and dust surrounding a young star. In
our own solar system, giant planets such as Jupiter and Saturn are
thought to have begun rapidly accumulating their massive gaseous envelopes once
their growing cores reached roughly 20 times Earth's mass.
GJ 523b is
already about 23 times Earth's mass, putting it beyond that threshold. Yet instead
of developing into a gas-rich world, its unusually high density suggests it has
relatively little gas and remains predominantly rocky — raising the question of
why it followed such a different path.
According
to evolutionists, one possibility is that GJ 523b initially formed with a thick
atmosphere that was later stripped away. Another is that it formed through
a collision between two planets, creating
a larger rocky world while blasting much of their gaseous envelopes into space,
according to the statement.
But that is
speculating on Darwinist fables.
Source:
Samantha Mathewson 2026 Astronomers discover a giant, rocky 'mega-Earth' 23 times more massive than our planet | Space 19 August
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