Friday 1 November 2013

Earth’s Twin Is Scorching Hot

An artist’s impression of Kepler-78. Image courtesy of David A. Aguilar (CfA).




Joel Kontinen

The more exoplanets we find, the more obvious it becomes that Earth is a very special place.

Recently, researchers reported on the discovery of Kepler-78b, an Earth-sized planet orbiting its star some 400 light years from us in the constellation Cygnus.

According to an article in Nature news, “Kepler-78b travels in orbit about 40 times closer to its star than Mercury is to the Sun; its year lasts just 8.5 hours; and its surface is thought to reach a scorching 2,300–3,100 Kelvin.”

Earth’s twin reminds us of something that Dante could have written. It hardly resembles the bluish planet where we live.

It seems that there’s no place like home in the universe. While this is difficult if not impossible to explain by a worldview based on Darwinism, the Bible tells us that God made the good earth to be habitable.


Source:

Gibney, Elizabeth. 2013. Exoplanet is built like Earth but much, much hotter. Nature news (30 October).