Its surface is an ocean of lava — and its year lasts just 18 hours. 🔥
Meet 55 Cancri e, a super-Earth 41 light-years away in the constellation Cancer. About twice the size of Earth and eight times its mass, it races around its sun-like star in just 18 hours, locked so the same side always faces the fire. Its dayside measures about 2,800°F (~1,540°C) — hot enough to melt rock.
You may have heard it called the "diamond planet." That was an early 2012 idea that it might be rich in carbon — later data weakened that case, and it was never confirmed.
Then in 2024, the James Webb Space Telescope found the best evidence yet for an atmosphere on a rocky world: gases rich in carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide, thought to be bubbling up from the magma ocean itself, constantly rebuilding the planet's air.
Sources: Hu et al. 2024, Nature 630, 609–612; NASA/JPL Webb release 2024-102.
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