Pandora Eclipsed
'Exotic Super-Earth:'
Family portraits of two planetary systems: A simulation of the silhouette of planet 55 Cancri e passing in front of ("transiting") its parent star
An international team of astronomers have revealed details of a "super-exotic" exoplanet that would make the planet Pandora in the movie Avatar pale in comparison. The planet, named 55 Cancri e, is 60 percent larger in diameter than Earth but eight times as massive. Twice as dense as Earth -- almost as dense as lead -- it is the densest solid planet known, according to a team led by astronomers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of British Columbia (UBC), the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC). The research, based on observations from Canada's MOST (Microvariability & Oscillations of STars) space telescope, has been submitted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. MOST is a Canadian Space Agency mission. Approximately 40 light years from Earth, 55 Cancri e orbits a star -- called 55 Cancri A -- so closely that its year is less than 18 hours long. "You could set dates on this world by your wrist watch, not a calendar," says UBC astronomer Jaymie Matthews.
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