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How come many Earth-like exoplanets are bigger than Earth?

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Extrasolar planets are usually discovered not by imaging (they are too far away and their stars too bright to see the planet), but by the gravitational influence of the planet on the Star causing a regular red or blue shift of the star's light as ... read more

For 1282 exoplanets with estimated masses (at this instant), 9 have smaller masses than Earth, and 638 have smaller masses than Jupiter. So more than half the exoplanets are bigger than Jupiter. So maybe our solar system is unique in having 50% of its planets at Earth mass or smaller (Planet 9 and/or 10 not having been confirmed yet). read more

Similarly, Tau Ceti e and Kepler 186f have both been touted as Earth twins, but there are other exoplanets out there that are rather more Earth-like. A good way to estimate how habitable a planet is the Earth Similarity Index (ESI). read more

Mars has been placed at 0.797, the most Earth-like planet in our system. Even more so exciting, there are four known exoplanets with a higher ESI than Mars, a planet humans are considering to inhabit within the next two decades. The famed Kepler 438b has an index of 0.88, the closest to Earth ever recorded (as of 14th January 2018). read more

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