But GJ 1214b, which is located 40 light-years from Earth in the constellation Ophiuchus (The Serpent Bearer), is something new altogether, researchers said.
This so-called "super-Earth" is about 2.7 times Earth’s diameter and weighs nearly seven times as much as our home planet. It orbits a red-dwarf star at a distance of 1.2 million miles (2 million kilometres), giving it an estimated surface temperature of 446 degrees Fahrenheit (230 degrees Celsius) — too hot to host life as we know it.
Scientists first reported in 2010 that GJ 1214b's atmosphere is likely composed primarily of water, but their findings were not definitive. Berta and his team used Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 to help dispel the doubts.
I'm sure the surface of this super ocean is too hot for life but I would be willing to bet that there is something interesting far below the surface. Also it is quite a bit closer to this red dwarf star so the gravity on the planet would be much higher than that of earth. So my money would be on super worms as long as subway trains, and massive whales as big as office buildings, fighting sharks the size of an industrial earth movers. It would be one strange world indeed.
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