'Waterworld' Discovered 40 Light Years Away

And yes, this giant ball of boiling water is markedly more watchable than the Kevin Costner movie.

American astronomers have discovered a planet just 40 light years away that is almost completely made of water. The planet, named GJ1214b (although we're obviously calling this sucker Waterworld), is about 2.7 times bigger than Earth and weighs about seven times that much, despite having far less solid matter than our delightful little home. The Hubble Telescope originally found the planet in 2009, but just now have the details of GJ1214b been made public. The Hubble team was able to determine the planet's make-up by examining it as it passed in front of its host star, a red dwarf called Ophiuchus. The light given off by the star was filtered through the planet's atmosphere and then analyzed by the Hubble team, which revealed that the atmosphere was almost entirely water vapour. The team also figured out the planet's density, which is far lower than Earth's – a sign that indicated to them that GJ1214b was largely comprised of water. And not just any water, but water in such states as "hot ice" and "superfluid water", owing to the fact that the planet's average temperature is about 450 F. These properties led the team to posit that GJ1214b initially was much further away from the red dwarf, but as it was drawn closer and closer to the star, the planet's water grew hotter and hotter.