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Astronomers discover a giant, rocky 'mega-Earth' 23 times more massive than our planet
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At 23.5 times Earth’s mass, GJ 523b is massive enough that standard planet-formation models struggle to explain why it didn’t accumulate a huge hydrogen-helium envelope — yet the planet is extraordinarily dense and apparently mostly rock, and astronomer
GJ 523b packs 23.5 Earth masses into a world only 2.55 Earth radii wide, challenging models that expect such a massive young planet to retain a deep hydrogen-helium envelope.
GJ 523b looks ordinary until astronomers put it on a scale. The planet is 2.55 times Earth’s radius, placing it among the sub-Neptunes that usually carry deep layers of volatile material or hydrogen and helium. Yet it weighs 23.5 Earth masses. Pack that much material into its measured volume and the result is a bulk density of 7.8 grams per cubic centimetre, about 40 percent greater than Earth’s.
It is a planet with the dimensions of one familiar class and the density of another. The simplest reading is that GJ 523b contains a great deal of rock and metal but remarkably little of the light gas that a world this massive would normally be expected to collect.
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