A milestone was crossed, with relatively little fan-fare, just today… there’s now, officially, over 300 exoplanets
Extra-Solar Planets Catalog… 303 Known Exoplanets
…and there’s five new Super-Earths – exoplanets over Earth’s mass. None have known radii so we’ve no idea if they’re rocky or icy or gas, but they’re not as big as the Gas Giants that have dominated discoveries thus far. A hopeful trend towards Earth-like planets, we can hope.
At this point in time it’s just not worth speculating what they’re like. At most we can tell how much sunlight they receive from their primaries, but not much else can be said. Will they be greenhouse wastelands? Planetary steam-baths? Hyperactively volcanic, or tectonically locked in place? Coated in thousands of kilometres of hot ice? Or something utterly unexpected?
All I can say… Watch the Skies!