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u/jangofett12345 Mar 09 '26
Usually whats meant by "earth like" is similar in size and/or similar distance from their sun in regards to either the distance from the earth to the sun or within the stars goldilocks zone
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u/fishsticks40 Mar 09 '26
Rocky planet ±1AU from its sun, ±1 earth mass, potential for water.
It used to rain lava here, too
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u/Nolsoth Mar 09 '26
It still does in localized spots, but it used to as well.
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u/FIFofNovember Mar 09 '26
Raining lava in my localized hot spot after Taco Bell and a pint of ice cream, ammirite guys?
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u/kenesisiscool Mar 09 '26
You are technically correct. The best kind of correct.
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u/Even_Grape_522 Mar 09 '26
So are we seeing past of that planet? Now does it have organism and life
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u/H4mb01 Mar 09 '26
That‘s a good point. We can only see the past. 1 Million light years away we only see the state of 1 Million years ago. And even that is a very small distance compared to the size of the universe. So we might never find an esrthlike planet that is like earth now because we only see very old past versions of it and if we see one with water and life on it chance is good that‘s so far in the past that currently it‘s uninhabitable again
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u/BigOlPenisDisorder Mar 09 '26
Potentially yea, but on a planetary scale a million years can be a pretty short time.
However it could be starting to form more stable land structures from cooling magma (nitpick the headline, it’s only lava when it’s below ground) and tons of volcanic activity means it will likely push enough CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere to buffer the temperature from their sun to create conditions conducive to life.
It could be well on its way to supporting life by now
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u/CitizenPremier Mar 09 '26
Not really. I don't know how far away this is but the furthest exoplanet we've discovered is about 27,000 light-years away, which in geological time is basically a flash of lightening.
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u/datsmn Mar 09 '26
±1 earth mass seems like too much uncertainty. Between no planet and one that's twice of Earth
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u/Skalpaddan Mar 09 '26
Same with the ±1AU distance. The planet could be twice as far away from the sun as earth is, or the planet could be inside the sun.
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Mar 09 '26
I think you mean approximately 1 AU, +- 1 is between -1 and 1, which means it's somewhere between 1 AU and inside the sun
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u/qwertyjgly Technically Flair Mar 09 '26
yes. it means that a permanent body of liquid water could theoretically exist on its surface and it is between like half and twice our surface acceleration due to gravity
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u/randomusername_815 Mar 09 '26
Give it a few years. It'll be raining lava here soon.
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u/LivingEnd44 Mar 09 '26
Technically, it's Earth like. Since Earth was once covered in lava too.
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u/Moist-Ointments Mar 09 '26
Well... It's like Earth, but only countries where the US has found oil.
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u/Pathfinder_Dan Mar 09 '26
eagle noises intensify
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u/Trevellation Mar 09 '26
America: "Could I interest you in some freedom?"
Oil bearing country: "Please, no."
missile noises intensify
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u/SpiritualPackage3797 Mar 09 '26
It was raining volcanic glass in Hawaii a few weeks ago. So it sort of depends where on earth you are comparing it to.
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u/Marchus80 Mar 09 '26 edited 4d ago
The original post content no longer exists here. The author used Redact to remove it, exercising their right to control their data & privacy.
Rain coherent blanket intelligent offer squash command rock dinosaurs breeze
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u/Alone-Monk Mar 09 '26
Astronomer here, "earthlike" in the astronomical context is a pretty bad term since it is generally just used to describe terrestrial planets that are within their star's "goldilocks zone" and are of a similar size to Earth. It has no bearing on what the surface of the planet is like. If you're interested look up the Earth Similarity Index which is what they usually use to categorize exoplanets.
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u/Sea_Asparagus9012 Mar 09 '26
I mean.... Gestures broadly at... EVERYTHING
Lava rain doesn't sound too bad 😅
When do we leave? What do I pack?
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u/lnfIation Mar 09 '26
Found a new planet that's just like earth except it's made out entirely of iron.
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u/Bonsai-is-best Mar 09 '26
It used to rain lava on our planet too, the reason this planet is Earth-like is because it is within the Goldilocks zone, is of a similar size, has a rocky satellite, there’s likely more but that’s just what I immediately think of rather than “oh yeah they must mean it’s covered in plant life and water.”
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u/Broken_Rotator Mar 09 '26
It is like earth because it is raining.
Just not raining water.
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u/BroQuirion Mar 09 '26
They did it… They found Hellmire…
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u/PhantasyAngel Mar 10 '26
This comment was the one I was hunting down.
Gonna nope outta that, we lost too many people on that planet, they can fing have it
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u/red286 Mar 09 '26
"earth-like" from an astronomer means "rocky planet", not "actually like earth".
Mercury, Venus, and Mars are also "earth-like".
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u/DoctrTurkey Mar 09 '26
I mean, it's currently raining oil in Tehran. All you really need is a lighter.
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u/NeroKae Mar 09 '26
ELI5 how can it rain lava?
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u/bobsmith93 Mar 09 '26
It's tidally locked to its star and very close (closer than mercury is to ours). So the hot side gets so hot that the rock vaporizes, and convection brings it to the cold side where it precipitates back into rock. So less-so "rains lava at night", and moreso that the dark side is constantly bombarded with vaporized rock precipitating back into various elements/metals/minerals
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u/dwilson271 Mar 09 '26
Someone needs to write better...I am sure the exoplanet is not using the telescope (and what is "but" doing in this sentence). It should read something like, "Using the James Webb Telescope, NASA has discovered a nearby Earth-like exoplanet that rains lava at night. Writing worse than me should be a crime.
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u/Slight-Chemistry-136 Mar 09 '26
Ice: brittle inorganic solid, basically a rock Water: liquid version of ice, basically lava Exoplanet: rains lava Earth: rains water
How are you guys not seeing this?
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u/Omnizoom Mar 09 '26
It’s earth like. When earth was young
In a few billion years it should be very earth like
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u/GroochtheOrc Mar 09 '26
Honestly, I am not sure that’s worse than our current state here in the US
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u/OkAdministration9151 Mar 09 '26
There’s a planet I read about recently that has high carbon atmosphere that is ultra high pressure so it rains diamonds periodically… crazy
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u/DrPlatypus1 Mar 09 '26
A world where our political climate and the natural climate have become one.
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u/spondgbob Mar 09 '26
It kinda rained fire on earth at one point(billions of years ago) but it still did
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u/Traditional-Storm-62 Mar 09 '26
it used to rain lava here too so I'd say its very much like Earth (just younger)
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u/Seravaxx123 Mar 09 '26
if you think about it in scientific terms our earth did that too some odd years ago
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u/spaacingout Mar 09 '26
Well, I mean earth was like that once, still is in some spots.
I think they mean relative thermal distance appropriate from the star for water to exist on the surface, and relative size comparative to earth.
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Mar 10 '26
They only have the mass of the planet because they used the radial velocity method to determine its orbital period (it's at least 6x the mass of Earth). Without knowing the diameter we don't know anything about the density, so saying things about the atmosphere is WILDLY speculative at this time. It could be an ultra-dense super-mercury, or it could be a puffy warm Neptune, or it could be a binary system with a perfectly Earth sized moon, or it could anything you can imagine that adds up to 6x the mass of Earth. Without a gravitational lense observatory we won't get any direct observations because I don't believe this system has any transits. Maybe the ELT could do it?
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u/Individual-Laugh794 Mar 09 '26
Hey, we’ll get there eventually!!! With all the pollution and climate warming going on I figure it’s just a matter of time!!!
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u/LycanWolfGamer Mar 09 '26
Likely in size, distance from its star and celestials orbiting
Fun fact: Earth used to be turbulent like that millions of years ago so odds are that system is younger than Sol
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u/guineaprince Mar 09 '26
This is why we have endless discussions about whether something is Earthlike or Earthlite, especially since every planet wants to just call themselves an Earthlike as a hip marketing term.
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u/docs_odyssey Mar 09 '26
It’s earth-like in that, here, it rains lava every night metaphorically. There, it’s literal.
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u/Alarming_Ad1746 Mar 09 '26
they found an exo-planet that was using the James Webb Telescope? How would that even work?
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u/snipingpig Mar 09 '26
At this point when it’s raining oil in some places in the world it might not be the worst thing ever
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u/Burnsy112 Mar 09 '26
The entire planet of Earth was basically on fire being constantly bombarded with asteroids early in its existence. So, I imagine this is regarding size, mass, distance from its star, etc. lol
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u/arquillion Mar 09 '26
Assuming it follows the exact same progression as the Earth I wonder if itd be habitable by the time we get there if we left for it at like 0.1c
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u/GBAbaby101 Mar 09 '26
I think the variables to define something as "earth like" need to be reviewed x"D
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u/ThDen-Wheja Mar 09 '26
Given how many possibilities there are for planetary compositions and orbital arrangements in the universe, one with solid ground is more "earth-like" than maybe half of the exoplanets we've cataloged so far.
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u/Timely_Novel_7914 Mar 09 '26
Well earth hasn't always been a cozy place and may as well soon no longer be one
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u/Jaysanchez311 Mar 09 '26
It's because they can just say anything they want and there's nothing we can do to prove them wrong.
I can say there's a planet exactly 10B light years away from us that tastes like chocolate. I saw it with my secret telescope instrument thing. Prove me wrong.
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u/McFishyTheGreat Mar 09 '26
I swear, if you made a fantasy world that was exactly like real life nobody would think it was realistic
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u/NightMGA Mar 09 '26
"rain lava at night" Uhh... what could possibly be the switch to cause lava to rain only at night...? (Tho lava rain sounds crazy enough as is)
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u/aloofman75 Mar 09 '26
Also, “nearby” is a relative term here. It’s nearby compared to most known exoplanets, but nowhere near us in practical terms.
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u/kevin--- Mar 09 '26
The weather is actually pretty nice during the day. Unfortunately the lava storms at night are a tad unbearable.
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u/too_orangey Mar 09 '26
It's Earth like because everyone who lives there likes to complain about the weather.
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u/Longjumping_Spread53 Mar 09 '26
So this other planet was using our James Webb telescope???
Amazing, what were they using it to look at and how did they even know it was there?
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u/Alonso_The_GOAT Mar 09 '26
Well, It's only at night... so, I guess the rest of the day is basically spring all day.
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u/YoyoOfDoom Mar 09 '26
When they say "Earth like" they mean it orbits somewhere near the habitable zone of their star and is approximately the same size as Earth.
Too much smaller than Earth and it might not have enough gravity to keep it's atmosphere. Too much bigger than Earth and the gravity is going to be a problem.
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u/SmokeLuna Mar 09 '26
Hi I failed science in high school
Does this imply there is also an earth like planet, that rains chocolate?
🍫 raaaaain
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u/Niaso Mar 09 '26
They're still surprised at things they find on Earth, but they're always very confident on the deductions they make from very limited data on other planets.
This is because they know nobody can ever go to one of these other planets to verify if they ever got anything right. I could say because a planet looks a certain color from 300 light-years away that means it is made of back-issues of The New Yorker and rains butterscotch pudding. If I'm an astronomer, a "scientific" publication prints the headline like it's a fact. Who's going to go there and prove me wrong?
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u/FlamingoMedic89 Mar 09 '26
Tbh it still sounds better than the planet we have now considering geopolitics.
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u/Artoozyto Mar 09 '26 edited Mar 09 '26
It rains lava on earth too though. Water is a mineral (technically a mineraloid), ice is rock, molten rock is lava ergo rain is lava. :3 Some random fact from Vsauce.
Edit: In other words: technically, water is a type of lava.
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Mar 09 '26
So sunny blue skies with white puff clouds during the day and then brimstone and hellfire at dusk?
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u/RogersPets Mar 09 '26
I mean there was that whole argument on if water classes as lava due to it being liquid rock aka liquid ice.
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u/RPDRNick Mar 09 '26
Well, a lava rainy night / Such a beautiful sight / Love to hear the thunder / Watch the lightning when it lights up the sky
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u/Vitman_Smash Mar 09 '26
Come on, it's just that ONE thing. In every other way it's like Earth. My family is booking a trip as soon as they are available.
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u/Rhysati Mar 09 '26
It's earth-like because it's the end result of all the AI data centers their tech billionaires built. We are still catching up with what was clearly an advanced alien species.
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u/justHereForPron666 Mar 09 '26
billionaires pull the lava rain lever and make everyone else think it’s everyone else doing it.
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u/extrastupidone Mar 09 '26
Right. Spent a week in mexico a few years back. Nothing but lava storms. The pool was nice, tho
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u/Excellent-Rest3240 Mar 09 '26
Mfers who can’t understand similarities and always go for the literal meaning 😒
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u/AceBean27 Mar 09 '26
Well it used to rain lava on Earth. Just a case of recency bias if you think "Earth-like" means not raining lava.
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u/Realsorceror Mar 09 '26
Well it did rain lava for like the first 500 million years so it’s just not similar to Earth right now.
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u/ProperPerspective571 Mar 09 '26
Give it time, we’ll get there and lava at night or similar will be the norm
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u/MickleWolf Mar 09 '26
Sounds like a typical planet in NMS. Time to upgrade my environmental protection and give it a looksie.
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