New spectrometer makes it possible to improve the orbit of Super Earth Jansenne, which rotates very close to its stars. The planet seems to form further away and will eventually only migrate to closer orbits and heat to incredible temperatures.
Jensen Hot Planet: Artist's Eyes
Most of the known exoplanets are too harsh and are not suitable for life at all. However, even in this context, Jansenne (55 Cancer e) stands out. It is twice the size of Earth and orbits the sun-like star 55 Cancer A about 40 light years away. Meanwhile, the planet is orbiting so close to the star that it completes a full revolution in less than 18 hours. The orbital radius reaches 2 million kilometers: by comparison, the Earth is 147 million kilometers and Mercury is 46 million kilometers.
Jansenne always turns to 's home star on one side, where the temperature jumps from 1000 degrees to 2700 degrees. But even in the "night" hemisphere, it won't be much colder: the entire surface of the earth is likely to be covered by lava , and the volcano will not fade even for a moment. Astronomers at the Flatiron Institute in New York have managed to figure out how Jansenne became such a “hellish” world. Article Lily Zhao (Lily Zhao) and her colleagues published in the journal Nature Astronomy6.
Scientists observed the 55 Cancer A system using a new EXPRES spectrometer installed on the 4.3-meter telescope at the Lowell Observatory. While moving in orbit, Jansenn passes in the background of a star, which makes it possible to study planets through changes in planetary radiation. This clearly distinguishes it from other planets in the system (there are five known to be total) that do not mask the stars in their motion. Jansenne's orbit is almost within the equatorial plane of Cancer 55 A, while the orbits of the other four planets are strongly deviating from it. This greatly distinguishes the system from our solar system, where all planets in almost all run in the plane of the equator of the star.
Scientists attribute this difference to the presence of nearest neighbors in 55 Cancer A. This star is part of the Copernicus binary system, with the red dwarf 55 Cancer B located next to it. Apparently, it was its gravity that knocked the planets out of their original plane. Most likely, Jansenne also formed in a further orbit, but due to the same gravitational interaction, she began to gradually get closer to the stars. At the same time, the temperature on this planet is getting higher and higher until it becomes the "hell" world we see today.
