55 Cancri e Planet

CalendarToday
timer
1 min read
55 Cancri e Planet Blog Image

Overview:

Recently, astronomers detected rocky planets beyond our solar system with an atmosphere.

About 55 Cancri e Planet:

  • It is an exoplanet also known as Janssen and is a super-Earth.
  • The planet is located in our Milky Way galaxy about 41 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Cancer.
  • It is a rocky planet significantly larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune.
  • It orbits perilously close to a star dimmer and slightly less massive than our sun, rapidly completing an orbit every 18 hours or so.
  • It is about 8.8 times more massive than Earth, with a diameter about twice that of our planet.
  • It orbits its star at one-25th the distance between our solar system's innermost planet Mercury and the sun. As a result, its surface temperature is about 3,140 degrees Fahrenheit.
  • The planet is probably tidally locked, meaning it perpetually has the same side facing its star, much like the moon does toward Earth. Four other planets, all gas giants, are known to orbit its host star.

Q1: What are Exoplanets?

These are planets that orbit other stars and are beyond our solar system. Exoplanets come in a host of different sizes. They can be gas giants bigger than Jupiter or as small and rocky as Earth. They are also known to have different kinds of temperatures; boiling to cold.

Source: Astronomers finally detect a rocky planet with an atmosphere