Mysterious signals that a super-Earth, dubbed the “hellish” planet and located about 50 light-years away from Earth, has been sending for close to two decades appear to have been finally deciphered by scientists.
The reason for the signals are the volcanoes peppering the surface of this world, boasting the name of 55 Cancri e, or also Janssen. Apparently, when they periodically spring alive, they spew hot carbon-rich gas, with the latter an atmosphere. But once that atmosphere is burnt off by the high temperatures caused by the planet's extremely close orbit, the process reoccurs again, according to the study, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. For comparison's sake, the distance between 55 Cancri e and its host star is two percent of the distance between Earth and the Sun.
This super-Earth - a type of exoplanet with a mass greater than our planet - is a rocky world about eight times as massive as Earth. It was discovered in 2004 orbiting a Sun-like star (Copernicus, or 55 Cancri) at a distance of less than 1.5 million miles in the constellation Cancer. The fact that the exoplanet moves on an orbit around its host at a very close distance, completing one rotation around it in only 18 hours, basically means that a year on that planet lasts exactly that long. With the surface temperature on the planet apparently “far above the melting point of typical rock-forming minerals,” the day side of 55 Cancri e “is thought to be covered in oceans of lava,” NASA previously reported. As to its core, it is believed to have a core made of diamond.
As to the signals coming from the super-Earth, they have long baffled scientists. These transit signals are, specifically, the light that is visible from Earth when 55 Cancri e moves across the face of its host star, in an eclipse, as well as when when it passes behind Copernicus.
Accordingly, as observations have revealed, the atmosphere of 55 Cancri e is very unstable, with the situation being such that sometimes the exoplanet has an atmosphere, and sometimes it doesn't. Researchers have noted that this theory explaining the signals needs to be tested, using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Once the temperature and pressure of the planet's atmosphere have been measured, scientists will be able to finally determine the timeline for the presence of an atmosphere on the "hellish" planet.