File:Mega-earth.jpg

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Artist's impression of a mega-Earth

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English: A mega-Earth is a proposed neologism for a massive terrestrial exoplanet that is at least ten times the mass of Earth. Mega-Earths would be substantially more massive than super-Earths (terrestrial and ocean planets with masses around 5–10 Earths). The term "mega-Earth" was coined in 2014, when Kepler-10c was revealed to be a Neptune-mass planet with a density considerably greater than that of Earth, though it has since been determined to be a typical volatile-rich planet weighing just under half that mass.K2-56b, also designated BD+20594b, is a much more likely mega-Earth, with about 16 Earth's mass and 2.2 Earth's radius. At the time of its discovery in 2016, it had the highest chance of being rocky for a planet its size, with a posterior probability that it is dense enough to be terrestrial at about 0.43. For comparison, at the time the corresponding probability for Kepler-10c was calculated as 0.1, and as 0.002 for Kepler-131b.Kepler-145b is one of the most massive planets classified as mega-Earths, with a mass of 37.1 Earth's mass and a radius of 2.65 Earth's radius, so large that it could belong to a sub-category of mega-Earths known as supermassive terrestrial planets (SMTP). It likely has an Earth-like composition of rock and iron without any volatiles. A similar mega-Earth, K2-66b, has a mass of about 21.3 ME and a radius of about 2.49 RE, and orbits a subgiant star. Its composition appears to be mainly rock with a small iron core and a relatively thin steam atmosphere.Kepler-277b and Kepler-277c are a pair of planets orbiting the same star, both thought to be mega-Earths with masses of about 87.4 ME and 64.2 ME, and radii of about 2.92 RE and 3.36 RE, respectively.
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Author Pablo Carlos Budassi

Planet concept illustrated especially for Wikimedia Commons by Pablo Carlos Budassi. Source: https://www.pablocarlosbudassi.com/2021/02/planet-types.html Background image by ESO/Serge Brunier: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ESO_-_Milky_Way.jpg Suggestions for improving this image are welcome: pablocarlosbudassi@gmail.com

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current15:46, 15 August 2023Thumbnail for version as of 15:46, 15 August 20231,080 × 1,080 (461 KB)Celestialobjects (talk | contribs)Uploaded own work with UploadWizard

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