Human beings may soon get a close look at a planet that resembles the Biblical Hell, where the planet perpetually burns.
The exoplanet 55 Cancri e, whose mass is eight times that of Earth, orbits a star called Copernicus, 41 light-years from Earth. Copernicus, like our own sun, is a G-type star, and 55 Cancri e, first discovered in 2004, sits is less than 1.5 million miles from the star, 25 times closer that Mercury is from our sun.
“With surface temperatures far above the melting point of typical rock-forming minerals, the day side of the planet is thought to be covered in oceans of lava,” NASA reported.
“Imagine if Earth were much, much closer to the Sun,” NASA continued. “So close that an entire year lasts only a few hours. So close that gravity has locked one hemisphere in permanent searing daylight and the other in endless darkness. So close that the oceans boil away, rocks begin to melt, and the clouds rain lava.”
Oddly, the hottest area on the exoplanet does not face the star.
NASA suggested one possibility for the anomaly is that 55 Cancri e has “a dynamic atmosphere that moves heat around.” Another possibility: 5 Cancri e rotates to create day and night.
“In this scenario, the surface would heat up, melt, and even vaporize during the day, forming a very thin atmosphere that Webb could detect,” NASA explained. “In the evening, the vapor would cool and condense to form droplets of lava that would rain back to the surface, turning solid again as night falls.”
“That could explain why the hottest part of the planet is shifted,” Alexis Brandeker from Stockholm University argued. “Just like on Earth, it would take time for the surface to heat up. The hottest time of the day would be in the afternoon, not right at noon.”
Using the James Webb Space Telescope, described as “the largest, most complex and powerful space telescope ever built” and only weeks away from full operation, NASA is prepared for a closer look.
“NASA’s Webb Telescope will use its superb angular resolution and near-infrared instruments to discover and study planetary systems similar to our own, analyze the molecular composition of extrasolar planets’ atmospheres and directly image Jupiter-size planets orbiting nearby stars,” Northrop Grumman boasts.
The Bible describes a “lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”