Astronomers have discovered the "Godzilla " of the entire earth - a huge rocky planet orbiting a star 560 years light of changing scientific understanding of the origins of the universe.
This new mega - Earth weighs 17 times more than our planet, and was found by NASA 's Kepler mission , experts at a meeting in Boston of the American Astronomical Society .
The new discovery , named Kepler 10c is 29,000 km across or 2.3 times the size of Earth .
" We were very surprised when we realized what we found," said astronomer Xavier Dumusque of the Harvard- Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
So far , astronomers do not believe that a rocky planet could get so big because its circumference more , would collect more hydrogen gas into a gas - giant like Jupiter.
" This is the land of Godzilla ! " Said Dimitar Sasselov researcher , director of the Harvard Initiative origins of life .
" But unlike the movie monster , Kepler -10c has positive implications for life. " Planet - hunting Kepler mission of U.S. space agency you can not locate planets and classify them according to the number of times their star pass . He can not reveal much about whether they are rocky or gaseous .
Kepler- 10c that elevated the status of super-Earths and mini - Neptunes - planets outside our solar system that are larger than Earth and gaseous dense smaller than Neptune - is a special telescope in the Canary Islands with its mass measured .
" Kepler- 10c has not lost its atmosphere over time. It is massive enough to be held if there ever was ," said Dumusque .
" It must have been the way that we see today . " Since Kepler- 10c is much denser than expected, which puts him in a new class, that planets are more likely to join once discovered , according to the experts.
Kepler- 10c, around her once sun-like star every 45 days , suggesting that it is probably too hot for life to survive.
It is in a planetary system that is also home to Kepler 10b, a wash - world that revolves around an orbit of 20 hours of fasting.
The Kepler -10 is old about 11 million years ago , and formed less than three million years after the Big Bang , scientists have said.
This means that somewhere in the universe was able to form a solid , even when heavy elements such as silicon and iron were rare. From the universe was made of hydrogen and helium you are .
"Finding Kepler- 10c says that rocky planets could form much earlier than we thought . And if you can make the rocks, which can make life ," said Sasselov