NASA Gets a Rare Look at a Rocky Exoplanet's Surface [LHS 3844b]

Jet Propulsion Laboratory Spitzer Telescope site ^ | August 19, 2019 | Calla Cofield

[SunkenCiv]

A new study using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope provides a rare glimpse of conditions on the surface of a rocky planet orbiting a star beyond the Sun... the planet's surface may resemble those of Earth's Moon or Mercury: The planet likely has little to no atmosphere and could be covered in the same cooled volcanic material found in the dark areas of the Moon's surface, called mare.

Discovered in 2018 by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Satellite Survey (TESS) mission, planet LHS 3844b is located 48.6 light-years from Earth and has a radius 1.3 times that of Earth. It orbits a small, cool type of star called an M dwarf - especially noteworthy because, as the most common and long-lived type of star in the Milky Way galaxy, M dwarfs may host a high percentage of the total number of planets in the galaxy.

...during follow-up observations, Spitzer was able to detect light from the surface of LHS 3844b. The planet makes one full revolution around its parent star in just 11 hours. With such a tight orbit, LHS 3844b is most likely "tidally locked," which is when one side of a planet permanently faces the star. The star-facing side, or dayside, is about 1,410 degrees Fahrenheit (770 degrees Celsius). Being extremely hot, the planet radiates a lot of infrared light, and Spitzer is an infrared telescope. The planet's parent star is relatively cool (though still much hotter than the planet), making direct observation of LHS 3844b's dayside possible.

[Telepathic Intruder]

Christiaan Huygens once looked at Mars with a telescope, and said it would be an awful waste of space if Mars were uninhabited. But it's very likely that the entire universe is, with only a few tiny exceptions. How many factors make life possible, and how closely do they all have to coincide? Obviously you need the right temperature for liquid water, an atmosphere, a good amount of heavy elements including carbon, and a stable sun. But there are also a myriad of smaller things that may or may not be necessary. A magnetic field, a large moon, continental drift, a Jupiter-like planet in the outer solar system to shepherd away rogue asteroids, etc. How often do all these factors combine as in our case? And yet, Earth is still hit by occasional extinction events. A single gamma ray burst could end the whole show. Life may be so rare in the universe that we are the only example, at least in this galaxy.

Just an optimistic thought to put an extra skip in your step.

[SunkenCiv]

Cosmology and Exoplanets Win 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics
James Peebles, who helped found the field of cosmology, shares the prize with Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, discoverers of the first exoplanet around another sunlike star
By Clara Moskowitz on October 8, 2019
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cosmology-and-exoplanets-win-2019-nobel-prize-in-physics1/

[SunkenCiv]

"To consider the Earth as the only populated world in infinite space is as absurd as to assert that in an entire field of millet, only one grain will grow." -- Metrodorus, 4th c BC Greek philosopher

"Heaven and earth are large, yet in the whole of space they are but as a small grain of rice. How unreasonable it would be to suppose that, besides the heaven and earth which we can see, there are no other heavens and no other earths." -- Teng Mu, 13th c AD Chinese philosopher

[misanthrope]

Great thread!

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks! "Hey, Rocky, watch me pull an Exoplanet ouf ot my hat! Nothin' up my sleeve..."