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| One of the methods for detecting exoplanets is to look for the drop in brightness they cause when they pass in front of their parent star. Such a celestial alignment is known as a planetary transit. From Earth, both Mercury and Venus occasionally pass across the front of the Sun. When they do, they look like tiny black dots passing across the bright surface. Such transits block a tiny fraction of the light that COROT is able to detect. |
COROT-Exo-7, is only twice the mass of the Earth, and is the smallest exoplanet found as of early 2009. It was detected by the European planet-hunting spacecraft COROT, which uses transit photometry to search for terrestrial exoplanets. The planet orbits very close to its star and completes each revolution in a mere 20 hours. As a result, its surface temperature is approximately 1200 degrees Kelvin, enough to turn a rocky surface into molten lava.
Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COROT-Exo-7b
http://www.obspm.fr/actual/nouvelle/feb09/exo7.en.shtml
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