Discovering a new Earth 2.5 Trillion Miles Away?

Reported April 2008

LAUREL, Md. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- It took billions of years and the perfect conditions for our Earth to grow and form. Now, those same conditions can be seen in space, shaping a similar planet. Ivanhoe explains this exciting space discovery.

Far, far away, something amazing is brewing in space. Swirling around a giant star similar to our sun, astrophysicists have spotted the very early stages of a planet taking shape.

"What we think we're seeing is the actual formation of a planet -- terrestrial planet -- a rocky planet like the Earth, around the star," Carey Lisse, Ph.D., a senior research scientist at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., told Ivanhoe.

The Earth-like planet is about 430 light years away or 2.5 trillion miles from Earth. It's inside a huge dust belt -- bigger than our asteroid belt -- with enough dusty material to build a planet. "The material is forming at just the same distance, or close to the same distance where the Earth formed from the sun," Dr. Lisse says.

To find the planet, astronomers used images captured by the Spitzer Space Telescope. It looks for infrared light or heat radiating from the dusty materials. The images also confirm the rocky fragments forming the new planet are similar to materials found in the Earth's crust and core.

"So, the body that's going to form -- the planet that's going to form -- isn't going to be this gas giant with incredibly thick atmosphere," explains Dr. Lisse. It's going to be a rocky planet like Mars or Venus or the Earth."

There's also an outer ice belt circling the young planet, making it more likely that water could reach the new planet's surface … and maybe even life; but don't wait around for signs of life. The planet still needs another 100 million years before it's completely formed.

Astronomers say the star the new planet is spinning around is between ten and 16 million years old, which is the perfect age for forming Earth-like planets.

The American Astronomical Society and the American Geophysical Union contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Dr. Carey Lisse
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
Laurel, MD
(240) 228-0535
Carey.Lisse@jhuapl.edu

American Astronomical Society
Washington, DC 20009-1231
(202) 328-2010
http://www.aas.org
aas@aas.org

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