( CNN ) -- Scientists have discovered the first confirmed Earthlike planet outside our solar system , they announced Wednesday . An artist 's impression shows what the planet may look like in close orbit with its sun . `` This is the first confirmed rocky planet in another system , '' astronomer Artie Hatzes told CNN , contrasting the solid planet with gaseous ones like Jupiter and Saturn . But `` Earthlike '' is a relative term . The planet 's composition may be similar to that of Earth , but its environment is more like a vision of hell , the project 's lead astronomer said . It is so close to the star it orbits `` that the place may well look like Dante 's Inferno , with a probable temperature on its 'day face ' above 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit ( 2,000 degrees Celsius ) and minus-328 degrees Fahrenheit ( minus 200 degrees Celsius ) on its night face , '' said Didier Queloz of Geneva Observatory in Switzerland , the project leader . Hatzes , explaining that one side of the body is always facing the star and the other side always faces away , said the side `` facing the sun is probably molten . The other side could actually have ice '' if there is water on the planet . `` We think it has no atmosphere to redistribute the heat , '' Hatzes told CNN from Barcelona , Spain , where he is attending the `` Pathways Towards Habitable Planets '' conference . The astronomers were stunned to find a rocky planet so near a star , he said . `` We would have never dreamed you would find a rocky planet so close , '' he said . `` Its year is less than one of our days . '' The planet , known as CoRoT-7b , was detected early last year , but it took months of observation to determine that it had a composition roughly similar to Earth 's , the European Southern Observatory said in a statement . Astronomers were able to measure the dimensions of the planet by watching as it passed in front of the star it orbits , then carried out 70 hours of study of the planet 's effect on its star to infer its weight . With that information in hand , they were able to calculate its density -- and were thrilled with what they found , Hatzes said . `` What makes this exciting is you compare the density of this planet to the planets in our solar system , it 's only Mercury , Venus and Earth that are similar , '' Hatzes , of the Thuringer observatory in Germany , told CNN . They were helped by the fact that CoRoT-7b is relatively close to Earth -- about 500 light years away , in the constellation of Monoceros , the Unicorn . `` It 's in our solar neighborhood , '' Hatzes said . `` The thing that made it easier is it 's relatively close , so it 's relatively bright . If this star was much much farther away , we would n't have been able to do these measurements . '' At about five times Earth 's mass ( though not quite twice as large in circumference ) , it is the smallest planet ever spotted outside our solar system . It also has the fastest orbit . The planet whizzes around its star more than seven times faster than Earth moves , and is 23 times closer to the star than Mercury is to our sun . The planet was first detected early in 2008 by the CoRoT satellite , a 30-centimeter space telescope launched by the European Space Agency in December 2006 , specifically with the mission of detecting rocky planets outside the solar system . At least 42 scientists at 17 institutions on three continents worked on the project . They are publishing their findings in a special issue of the Astronomy and Astrophysics journal on October 22 as `` The CoRoT-7 Planetary System : Two Orbiting Super-Earths . ''
The planet , known as CoRoT-7b , was detected early last year . It took months to determine that it had a composition roughly similar to Earth 's . The planet is about five times more massive than Earth . Comment: It is so close to the star it orbits that it may `` look like Dante 's Inferno ''