Avian, what's up with this new Earthlike planet?

[Yesspaz]

Quoting from USA Today, Thursday 9-26.

Astronomers have since 1995 detected abpit 120 planets, all until now thought to be gas giants, orbiting nearby sun-like stars. ...astronomers reported Wednesday that teh new planet circles the star me Arae about 50 light-years away. The planet weighs almost as much as teh planet Uranus but circles much closer to its star, completing one orbite every 9.5 days(now that's a short year).

They are saying it's like earth, being rocky instead of gaseous, but it's freaking huge and close to it's sun. I thought BIG planets needed to be further out - that whole gravity/centrifigal-force thing. Because it's so big and so close to its sun, is that why it goes so fast around its orbit? It needs the centrifigal force?

Yesspaz, dork who gave up on his childhood dream of being an astronaut.