Washington, May 9 (IANS) NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has detected light emanating from a "super-Earth" planet beyond our solar system for the first time.
"Spitzer has amazed us yet again," said Bill Danchi, Spitzer program scientist at NASA Headquarters
here. "The spacecraft is pioneering the study of atmospheres of distant
planets and paving the way for NASA's upcoming James Webb Space
Telescope to apply a similar technique on potentially habitable
planets."
The planet, called 55 Cancri e, falls into a class of planets termed super Earths, which are more massive than our home world but lighter than giant planets like Neptune. The planet is about twice as big and eight times as massive as Earth. It orbits a bright star, called 55 Cancri, in a mere 18 hours, according to a NASA statement.
Previously, Spitzer and other telescopes were able to study the
planet by analyzing how the light from 55 Cancri changed as the planet
passed in front of the star. In the new study, Spitzer measured how much
infrared light comes from the planet itself.
The results reveal the planet is likely dark, and its sun-facing side
is more than 2,000 Kelvin (3,140 degrees Fahrenheit), hot enough to
melt metal. The new information is consistent with a prior theory that
55 Cancri e is a water world: a rocky core surrounded by a layer of
water in a "supercritical" state where it is both liquid and gas, and
topped by a blanket of steam.
"It could be very similar to
Neptune, if you pulled Neptune in toward our sun and watched its
atmosphere boil away," said Michael Gillon of Universite de Liege in
Belgium, principal investigator of the research, which appears in the
Astrophysical Journal. Brice-Olivier Demory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, led the study.
The 55 Cancri system is
relatively close to Earth, at 41 light-years away. It has five planets,
with 55 Cancri e the closest to the star and tidally locked, so one side
always faces the star. Spitzer discovered the sun-facing side is
extremely hot, indicating the planet probably does not have a
substantial atmosphere to carry the sun's heat to the unlit side.
Washington, May 9 (IANS) NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has detected light emanating from a "super-Earth" planet beyond our solar system for the first time.
"Spitzer has amazed us yet again," said Bill Danchi, Spitzer program scientist at NASA Headquarters
here. "The spacecraft is pioneering the study of atmospheres of distant
planets and paving the way for NASA's upcoming James Webb Space
Telescope to apply a similar technique on potentially habitable
planets."
The planet, called 55 Cancri e, falls into a class of planets termed super Earths, which are more massive than our home world but lighter than giant planets like Neptune. The planet is about twice as big and eight times as massive as Earth. It orbits a bright star, called 55 Cancri, in a mere 18 hours, according to a NASA statement.
Previously, Spitzer and other telescopes were able to study the
planet by analyzing how the light from 55 Cancri changed as the planet
passed in front of the star. In the new study, Spitzer measured how much
infrared light comes from the planet itself. The results reveal the planet is likely dark, and its sun-facing side is more than 2,000 Kelvin (3,140 degrees Fahrenheit), hot enough to melt metal. The new information is consistent with a prior theory that 55 Cancri e is a water world: a rocky core surrounded by a layer of water in a "supercritical" state where it is both liquid and gas, and topped by a blanket of steam.
"It could be very similar to
Neptune, if you pulled Neptune in toward our sun and watched its
atmosphere boil away," said Michael Gillon of Universite de Liege in
Belgium, principal investigator of the research, which appears in the
Astrophysical Journal. Brice-Olivier Demory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, led the study.
The 55 Cancri system is
relatively close to Earth, at 41 light-years away. It has five planets,
with 55 Cancri e the closest to the star and tidally locked, so one side
always faces the star. Spitzer discovered the sun-facing side is
extremely hot, indicating the planet probably does not have a
substantial atmosphere to carry the sun's heat to the unlit side.
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