Hell Planet with Seas of Molten Lava Found Orbiting a Sun-like Star

Hell Planet with Seas of Molten Lava Found

The Hot-Lava World is tidally locked to its star, just as our moon is to Earth, which means that one side always sizzles under the heat of its star while the other side remains in the dark.

Hell has an address: 55 Cancri-e is the first alien planet to have some of its surface features directly observed. And it’s no tropical paradise.

An international team of astronomers headed up by the University of Cambridge has examined data captured by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope about this 40 light-year-distant “super-Earth.”

Orbiting a sun-like star in the constellation Cancer, the astronomers observed the rocky planet through several entire orbits — each just 18 hours.

What they found is a world of extremes.

The planet is tidal-locked, meaning one face is permanently pointing toward the star.

This face is a sea of molten lava, with a surface temperature of 2,400 degrees C (4,352 F). The “dark side” is barely better. It’s solid — but simmering at 1,100 C (2,012 F).

The data suggests a lava world where the lava becomes hardened on the dark side of the planet.

“The day side could possibly have rivers of lava and big pools of extremely hot magma, but we think the night side would have solidified lava flows like those found in Hawaii,” said Michael Gillon of the University of Liège in Belgium.

Read more here: http://nypost.com/2016/03/31/heres-a-first-look-at-an-alien-planet/

The study, published in the science journal Nature, details how astronomers used infrared sensors to map the conditions on 55 Cancri-e’s rocky surface. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v532/n7598/full/nature17169.html

NASA’s Spitzer Maps Climate Patterns on a Super-Earth http://tinyurl.com/h775ucv

Clips & images credit: ESO, ESA/HUBBLE & NASA’s Spitzer Space Science Center