![]() ![]() This marks the first time, however, that light from a super-Earth has been detected.įor more information about 55 Cancri e, please see the ScienceCast video Rethinking an Alien World. Since then, other telescopes, including NASA's Hubble and Kepler space telescopes, have performed similar feats with gas giants using the same method. To the surprise of many, the observatory saw the infrared light of a "hot Jupiter," a gaseous planet much larger than the solid 55 Cancri e. In 2005, Spitzer became the first telescope to detect light from a planet beyond our solar system. "Because Spitzer was built very well, it's been able to adapt to this new field and make historic advances such as this." "When we conceived of Spitzer more than 40 years ago, exoplanets hadn't even been discovered," said Michael Werner, Spitzer project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. ![]() Find out about extremophiles and what makes a habitable zone for life as we know it. See how NASA's search for water on Mars proved successful with the Phoenix Lander. ![]() The telescope might be able to use a similar infrared method to Spitzer to search other potentially habitable planets for signs of molecules possibly related to life. Description Explore the possibility of finding life on other planets. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch in 2018, likely will be able to learn even more about the planet's composition. This type of information is important for studying the temperatures and compositions of planetary atmospheres beyond our own. The drop indicated how much light came directly from the planet itself. When the planet disappeared, the total light dropped, and then increased back to normal levels as the planet circled back into view. The plot shows how the infrared light from the 55 Cancri system, both the star and planet, changed as the planet passed behind its 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. It has five planets, with 55 Cancri e the closest to the star and tidally locked, so one side always faces the star. The 55 Cancri system is relatively close to Earth, at 41 light-years away. The lead author is Brice-Olivier Demory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. "It could be very similar to Neptune, if you pulled Neptune in toward our sun and watched its atmosphere boil away," said Michaël Gillon of Université de Liège in Belgium, principal investigator of the research, which appears in the Astrophysical Journal. 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: video. 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. In the new study, Spitzer measured how much infrared light comes from the planet itself. 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. An artist's concept of 55 Cancri e, a toasty "super-Earth" that rushes around its star every 18 hours. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |