EXOPLANET 55 CANCRI E - SCI
& TECH
News: Astronomers finally detect a
rocky planet with an atmosphere
What's in the news?
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Recently, astronomers detected rocky planets beyond
our solar system with an atmosphere.
55 Cancri e Planet:
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It is an exoplanet also known as Janssen and is a super-Earth.
Location:
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The planet is located in our Milky Way galaxy about 41 light-years from Earth, in the
constellation Cancer.
Features:
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It is a rocky
planet significantly larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune.
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It orbits perilously close to a star dimmer and slightly less massive than our sun, rapidly completing an orbit
every 18 hours or so.
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It is about 8.8
times more massive than Earth, with a diameter about twice that of our
planet.
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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.
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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.
Go back to basics:
Exoplanets:
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These are planets that orbit other stars and are beyond our solar system.
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Exoplanets come in a host of different sizes.
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They can be gas giants bigger than Jupiter or as
small and rocky as Earth.
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They are also known to have different kinds of
temperatures; boiling to cold.
Rocky Planets:
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Rocky planets, also known as terrestrial planets, are those made up mostly of solid rocks or metals.
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Their compositions include silicate rocks and
metals, with a dense metallic core.
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Unlike gas giants, rocky planets have solid, well-defined surfaces.
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They tend to be smaller and denser than gas giants.
● Their atmospheres are usually thinner, and they can range from having no atmosphere at all, like Mercury, to having a robust atmosphere with weather systems, like Earth.