Scientists have found a rocky planet outside our Solar System

Astronomers have found found a place outside our solar system where you can stand on... If the planet wasn't so hot...

Corot Scientists have been looking for other planets outside our solar system, and the have found over 300. But all of these planets are either gas balls or materials that are not solid. Finally after all these years of searching, they have finally found a planet that is solid. It is a rocky planet. Life forms when the have something to lie on, but this planet is too hot for life. This planet is too close to its sun.

This planet is so close that it completes its solar orbit in just 20 hours, zipping around its star at 466,000 mph(7 times faster than Earth). Mercury completes its orbit in a whole 88 days! This planet is 2.5 million km away from its sun. Mercury, on the other hand, is a whole 58 million km! This planets surface also reaches more than 1,982 degrees Celsius. Due to hot temperature, Corot-7b might be covered with lava or water vapor. BUT, when it is nighttime on Corot-7b, the temperature may be as low as -200 degrees Celsius. Corot-7b's sun is called Corot-7.

This planet is about twice the diameter of earth. This planet is also 5 times the mass of Earth.

Scientists found his planet in February 2009. It was very hard to spot this new planet. It is approximately 3690 trillion km(500 light years) away from Earth.

The scientists have named this planet Corot-7b. NASA says that now that there is a rocky solid planet found, scientists have more hope and confidence that they will find more earth-like planets with life somewhere out there in the universe.