Kepler-79b By: Sergio Fernández Serrano

Scientists at the Ames Research Center of NASA, in California (USA), have discovered the smallest planet known outside our solar system. The tiny world, called Kepler-37b, has a similar size of the Moon is significantly smaller than Mercury, in keeping certain similarities to be rocky and lacking in atmosphere and water. It is part of a system with at least two other exoplanets orbiting a star similar to the sun (Kepler-37b) to 210 years from Earth in the constellation Lyra years sun.

The Kepler spacecraft, launched by NASA in 2009 to locate rocky planets that could harbor life, discovered the three worlds when they were passing in front of its star, cooler than the Sun, producing a minieclipse revealing their presence. One of these worlds, Kepler-37b, has proved to be extremely small, almost as much as the moon. It orbits its star every thirteen days and the surface temperature reaches 400. The authors suggest that is probably a rocky planet with no atmosphere or water, like Mercury, though smaller.