The exoplanet 55 Cancri e has several names. But this rocky planet located 40 light years from Earth is best known for its reputation as the "Planet of Hell".
55 Cancri e is also called a super-Earth because it is a rocky planet that is eight times as massive and twice as wide as Earth. But the planet is so hot that it has oceans of molten lava. Imagine, the surface temperature alone reaches 1,982 degrees Celsius.
Interestingly, the interior of this exoplanet may also be filled with diamonds. 55 Cancri e orbits its parent star, Copernicus, very closely. As a result, it can complete one orbit in less than one Earth day. One year on this planet, is only equivalent to about 17.5 hours on Earth.
Quoted from CNN, astronomers wonder if the planet has always been so close to its star. A team of researchers used a new tool known as the EXPRES, or EXTREME PREcision Spectrometer, to determine the exact nature of planetary orbits.
These findings could help astronomers gain new insights into planet formation and how these celestial bodies develop their orbits.
Evolving orbit
The instrument was developed at Yale University by a team led by astronomer Debra Fischer and installed in the Lowell Telescope at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, United States.
The spectrometer is able to measure tiny shifts in starlight from Copernicus as 55 Cancri e moves between our planet and the star such as when the Moon blocks the Sun during a solar eclipse.
The researchers determined that 55 Cancri e orbits along the star's equator. But this Hell Planet wasn't the only planet orbiting Copernicus. There are four other planets in different orbits inhabiting this star system.
Astronomers believe 55 Cancri e's eccentric orbit indicates the planet initially started on a colder, more distant orbit before drifting closer to Copernicus. Then, the gravitational pull of the star's equator alters the orbit of 55 Cancri e.
"Astronomers predict that this planet formed much further back and then spiraled into its current orbit," said Fischer, senior study author and Eugene Higgins Professor of Astronomy at Yale.
"Those trips can knock planets out of the star's equatorial plane, but these results show the planet is holding on tightly," he said.
Hot exoplanet
Despite the fact that 55 Cancri e is not always as close to its star as possible, astronomers have concluded that the exoplanet is always scorching hot.
"The planet is likely so hot that nothing that we are aware of will be able to survive on the surface," said lead study author Lily Zhao, a researcher at the Flatiron Institute's Center for Computational Astrophysics in New York.
As 55 Cancri e moves closer to Copernicus, this Hell Planet gets hotter. To note, our Solar System is flat like a pancake, where all the planets orbit the Sun in a flat plane because they are all formed from the same disk of gas and dust that once revolved around our Sun.
When astronomers have studied other planetary systems, they have found that many of them do not have planets orbiting a single plane, which raises the question of how unique our Solar System is in the universe.
This type of data can provide more information about how common planets and Earth-like environments might be in the universe.
"We hope to find planetary systems similar to ours, and to better understand the systems we know about," said Zhao, adding that the main goal of the EXPRES instrument is to find Earth-like planets.
"EXPRESS precision is more than 1,000 times better than what we had 25 years ago when I just started working as a planet hunter," said Fischer.
"Improving measurement precision is a key career goal for me as it will allow us to detect smaller planets when searching for Earth analogues," he concluded.