Super-Earth Found, 18-Hour Year, 55 Cancri e 40 Light Years Away Says MIT Team

The far-out planet, named 55 Cancri e, is twice as big as Earth and nearly nine times more massive. It is most likely composed of rocky material, similar to Earth, supplemented with light elements such as water and hydrogen gas. Scientists estimate the planet’s surface is much hotter than ours: close to 2,700 degrees Celsius.

Article continues at: Link

Oh man,we really live in exciting period!

"It is most likely composed of rocky material, similar to Earth"

it's a dot, a billion miles away.

everything else is speculation

Originally posted by Beavers
"It is most likely composed of rocky material, similar to Earth"

it's a dot, a billion miles away.

everything else is speculation

While some of it may be speculation, they actually have a very cool and creative process to identify materials and compositions on the surface of the planet. They measure the light coming from the planet and the color in which it returns to the telescopes. If I can find the link I'll post it, but an astronomer a few decades ago developed the technique and it turned out to be one of the best methods for identifying farr off "dots" and give clues as to their composition to which has now almost become an astronomical standard in the scientific community.

King

Not sure how this can be called a super earth?

From the sound of the speculative desription, it doesn't sound anything like earth.. And sounds as though nothing could live there.

Also how can water exsist if the temperature is 2700 degrees?

Originally posted by Kingalbrect79

Originally posted by Beavers
"It is most likely composed of rocky material, similar to Earth"

it's a dot, a billion miles away.

everything else is speculation

While some of it may be speculation, they actually have a very cool and creative process to identify materials and compositions on the surface of the planet. They measure the light coming from the planet and the color in which it returns to the telescopes. If I can find the link I'll post it, but an astronomer a few decades ago developed the technique and it turned out to be one of the best methods for identifying farr off "dots" and give clues as to their composition to which has now almost become an astronomical standard in the scientific community.

King

I know about the technique that you speak of, bit even that is a form of speculation...
We have no way of knowing for sure about these distant planets until we actually physically visit them..

reply to post by Beavers


Actually it's not even a dot, that was an artist's rendering, and it's more like 235 TRILLION miles away. I don't mean to call you out or nothing I just wanted to apply a broader brush stroke to the speculative nature of the article's 'Earth like' comment. I suppose even science has to sensationalize a bit to gather interest.

Originally posted by Nikola014

The far-out planet, named 55 Cancri e, is twice as big as Earth and nearly nine times more massive. It is most likely composed of rocky material, similar to Earth, supplemented with light elements such as water and hydrogen gas. Scientists estimate the planet’s surface is much hotter than ours: close to 2,700 degrees Celsius.

Article continues at: Link

Oh man,we really live in exciting period!

now I'm no super smart guy but doesn't water boil at 100 degrees Celsius? also an 18 hour year would " i'm guessing" have a massive gravitational pull on the planet effectively crushing any life on the planet by its own weight?

reply to post by Misterlondon


damn beat me too it i think water boils at 100 degrees C

Like wow, an 18-hour year! It would have to be dense or everything would be flying off of the body. Something like that orbital dynamic almost suggests the body is tidally locked and must be equatorially distorted possibly with a thick atmosphere like Venus due to, probably devoid of any kind of water signature (like Venus). Even on Venus, 3x cooler than this body, the temperatures are sufficiently high enough to drive the carbon dioxide from the rocks into the atmosphere, the process is called sublimation.

Also about the image, we can't even image a comet nucleus should we get a view of one passing in front of the sun, which is why we can put a maximum diameter of a comet core at under 50 km.

it doesn't sound anything like earth

Super-Earth means a planet up to ten times as heavy as earth, anything above is called giant planet. It doesn't impose any other constraints like atmosphere or surface temperature.

light elements such as water

Most likely an error. Water is not a (chemical) element.

lol, 2700C?


it's not even rock!

27C is better.

270C will burn your frozen pizza before the next commercial.

Just did a quick check. With water they mean not liquid water but H2O(water molecules). Water thermolysis into hydrogen and oxygen starts at about 1800°C at 2700°C more than half of the water molecules will still be present. So yes there might be water on this planet.
Thermolysis

reply to post by moebius


Can't access that link.
The decomposition temperature of a substance is the temperature at which the substance chemically decomposes. If decomposition is sufficiently exothermic, a positive feedback loop is created producing thermal runaway and possibly an explosion. 2,500ºC is sufficiently hot enough for this to occur to water.

I will side with the idea that that body's atmosphere should be mostly CO2. The compound with the highest known decomposition temperature is carbon monoxide at ≈3870 °C (≈7000 °F).

reply to post by Illustronic

I changed the link to point to the website instead of the pdf. Water decomposition is endothermic 285.8 kJ per mole.

Originally posted by Misterlondon

I know about the technique that you speak of, bit even that is a form of speculation...
We have no way of knowing for sure about these distant planets until we actually physically visit them..

I agree with you that some speculation is involved when determining planet composition for distant solar bodies, but my point to the other poster was that the scientific community doesn't just point to the dark spot in front of the star and guess what's on it and call it fact.

King