First light from a super-Earth spotted Detection reveals a
searing planet. Data from the Spitzer Space Telescope reveals
that 55 Cancri e is very dark, and that its sun-facing side is
blistering hot. May 8, 2012 Jennifer Chu, MIT News Office
Scientists on a planetary-heat-seeking mission have detected the
first infrared light from a super-Earth — in this case, a planet
some 40 light-years away. And according to their calculations,
55 Cancri e, a planet just over twice the size of Earth, is
throwing off some serious heat. At a toasty 3,700 degrees
Fahrenheit, the planet is hot enough to liquefy steel. And
there’s not much relief from the scorching heat: Researchers at
MIT and other institutions say the planet may lack reflective
surfaces such as ice caps, instead absorbing most of the heat
from its parent star — much as Earth’s dark oceans trap heat
from the sun. Since the planet’s discovery in 2004, scientists
have unearthed a number of its properties; the new findings,
published in the current issue of Astro