Earth-sized lava planet? You're standing on it.

The space news world -- and even mainstream -- is buzzing...

Earth-sized lava planet? You're standing on it.

The space news world -- and even mainstream -- is buzzing over a newly discovered exoplanet that's just about the size of Earth.

READ: http://goo.gl/tRn3UJ

But don't pack your bags just yet. If the bazillion-mile travel distance (I can't find anything more accurate) isn't off-putting enough, consider that anyone born there would be celebrating a birthday every four and a half hours. It's 40 times closer to its star than Mercury is to ours, and that makes it hot. Like hot liquid magma hot. So they'd also need to be a fire drake.

But here's some back of the envelope math: Earth would be a writhing ball of lava were it not for the thin -- very thin -- crust we live on. 

How thin? Shrunk down to the size of a chicken egg, our crust would be half as thick as an egg shell. Who wants an omelette?

Show your work, my algebra teacher always said: Earth radius = 3,959 miles | Crust = ~25 miles. Chicken egg radius = ~22 mm | Shell thickness = ~.3mm

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Published on August 22, 2013 10:21
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