A world of ice and cold, a laboratory for understanding planetary birth
From the archived light of a telescope long silent, astronomers have drawn forth a new world — HD 137010 b, a planet Earth's own size and mass, yet locked in a deep freeze at minus 68 degrees Celsius, orbiting far beyond the warmth its star could offer. Discovered through NASA's Kepler data, this frozen twin challenges the comfortable notion that 'Earth-like' implies familiar or welcoming. It is a reminder that the universe forms worlds with indifferent abundance, and that our definitions of home, life, and possibility must stretch to meet what the cosmos actually contains.
- A world that mirrors Earth in size and mass has been found orbiting in permanent, life-excluding cold — unsettling the assumption that similarity implies habitability.
- The discovery arrives not from a new mission but from years-old telescope archives, underscoring how much remains hidden in data we already possess.
- Scientists are using the subtle dimming of distant starlight — no probe, no visit — to reconstruct the properties of a world hundreds of light-years away.
- HD 137010 b forces a reckoning with planetary models: rocky, Earth-sized worlds can apparently form and persist in conditions far harsher than theory once predicted.
- The Kepler mission's legacy keeps expanding our cosmic catalog, pushing the definition of 'Earth-like' from a narrow ideal toward a vast and strange spectrum of possibility.
Un equipo internacional de astrónomos ha identificado HD 137010 b, un planeta del tamaño y la masa de la Tierra que orbita mucho más allá de la zona habitable de su estrella, con temperaturas en torno a los -68 °C. No es un mundo acogedor: el agua líquida no puede existir en su superficie, y la vida tal como la conocemos no tendría cabida allí.
El hallazgo no provino de una misión nueva, sino de los archivos del telescopio espacial Kepler de la NASA, que durante nueve años observó estrellas lejanas antes de concluir su misión en 2018. Años después de que dejara de transmitir, los científicos siguen extrayendo descubrimientos de sus datos, identificando planetas a través del leve oscurecimiento de la luz estelar cuando un mundo pasa frente a su estrella anfitriona.
Lo que hace valioso a este planeta helado es precisamente su hostilidad. Al compartir dimensiones con la Tierra pero existir en condiciones tan extremas, HD 137010 b obliga a redefinir qué significa realmente «similar a la Tierra». Para los investigadores de la NASA, estudiar mundos en entornos tan adversos es esencial para perfeccionar los modelos de formación planetaria.
El legado de Kepler sigue remodelando nuestra comprensión del cosmos. La pregunta que guió su diseño —¿qué tan comunes son los planetas como la Tierra?— ha resultado mucho más compleja de lo esperado. Mundos como HD 137010 b demuestran que «similar a la Tierra» abarca un espectro amplísimo de condiciones, y que la diversidad de sistemas planetarios supera con creces lo que los primeros modelos anticipaban.
An international team of astronomers has spotted something unusual orbiting a distant star: a world that looks like Earth in size and mass, but frozen solid at temperatures around minus 68 degrees Celsius. They call it HD 137010 b, and it exists in a place where liquid water cannot survive on the surface—far outside the zone where its star's warmth might sustain life as we understand it.
The discovery came through data collected by NASA's Kepler space telescope, which spent nine years staring at distant stars before its mission ended in 2018. Even now, years after the telescope stopped transmitting, scientists continue mining its archives for worlds hidden in the light signatures of faraway suns. HD 137010 b emerged from that archive, identified through the subtle dimming of starlight as the planet passed in front of its host star—a technique that reveals an exoplanet's orbit, size, and hints about its atmosphere without ever sending a probe to visit it.
What makes this frozen world worth studying is precisely what makes it hostile. HD 137010 b shares fundamental characteristics with Earth—similar size, similar mass—yet exists in conditions so extreme that they force scientists to reconsider what "Earth-like" actually means. The planet sits outside its star's habitable zone, the region where temperatures might allow water to remain liquid and where, theoretically, life might take hold. Instead, HD 137010 b is a world of ice and cold, a laboratory for understanding how rocky planets form and evolve when they are born into harsh environments.
NASA researchers emphasize that studying planets in such extreme conditions is essential for refining models of how rocky and gaseous worlds develop. Each new exoplanet discovered—and there are now thousands—expands the catalog of what planetary systems can look like across the galaxy. HD 137010 b contributes a crucial data point: evidence that Earth-sized worlds can form far from their star's habitable zone, and that the diversity of planetary systems is far greater than early models predicted.
The Kepler mission's legacy continues to reshape our understanding of the cosmos. The telescope was designed to answer a deceptively simple question: How common are Earth-like planets? The answer has proven far more complex. Worlds like HD 137010 b reveal that "Earth-like" encompasses a spectrum of conditions—some hospitable, some utterly alien. They challenge the boundaries of what we consider habitable and force astronomers to think more carefully about where life might emerge, even in places that seem impossibly cold and dark. As more frozen worlds and extreme exoplanets come to light, the picture of planetary formation grows richer, stranger, and more full of possibility.
Citas Notables
This discovery offers a unique opportunity to study how Earth-like planets can form and evolve in extreme conditions— NASA
Planets like HD 137010 b help us understand the diversity of planetary systems in our galaxy and refine models of how Earth-like worlds develop— NASA
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why does a frozen planet matter if nothing can live there?
Because it teaches us how planets actually form. We thought Earth-sized worlds needed to be warm to exist. HD 137010 b shows they can form in the cold, which means our models were incomplete.
So we're not looking for life on this one?
Not directly. We're looking at the planet itself—how it got there, what it's made of, how it survived. That tells us about the rules that govern all rocky worlds.
How do they know so much about a planet they can't see directly?
Kepler watched the starlight flicker as the planet passed in front of its star. That flicker reveals the planet's size, how far it orbits, even hints about gases in its atmosphere. It's like reading a shadow.
And this matters because?
Because we're building a map. Every exoplanet—hot, cold, massive, tiny—fills in a gap in our understanding. HD 137010 b shows us that Earth-sized planets can exist in places we thought were impossible. That changes everything about where we look for worlds that might harbor life.
Does Kepler still work?
No, it ended in 2018. But the data it collected keeps yielding discoveries. Scientists are still finding new worlds in those old observations, which is why this frozen planet is emerging now, years later.
What comes next?
More telescopes, better instruments. We'll study planets like this one in greater detail, refine our models, and keep expanding the definition of what a planetary system can be.