Astronomers have found a planet covered with volcanoes, which may have water

Miscellaneous / by admin / May 18, 2023

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There is always day on one side of it, and endless night on the other.

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered a planet that is literally strewn with active volcanoes. It is possible that it also contains water. Study this was published in the journal Nature.

The Earth-sized exoplant was named LP 791-18d. It is located about 90 light-years away in the constellation Chalice, where it orbits a red dwarf. However, it does not have a day and night cycle - instead, one part is always scorched by hot rays, and the other is in darkness, like the moon.

The day side is probably too hot for liquid water to exist on the surface. But volcanic activity on the scale that we assume occurs all over the planet could support the atmosphere. In theory, this should allow water to condense on the night side.

Bjorn Bennecke

Astronomer at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Near this planet there is another one - LP 791-18c. It is two and a half times the size of the Earth and more than seven times its mass. And for some reason, it affects the orbit of the smaller neighbor, causing it to move in an elliptical trajectory around the star.

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A similar "big brother" impact deforms LP 791-18d each time it completes its flyby of the red dwarf. Scientists believe that this creates friction within the planet, heats up its rocks and eventually leads to the eruption of numerous volcanoes.

Now astronomers want to find out exactly what role tectonic or volcanic activity plays for organisms. There is a theory that these processes can uplift materials thought to be essential to life. For example, carbon. And without them, they would get stuck in the bark.

It is noted that Spitzer discovered LP 791-18d even before it brought out out of service in 2020. However, astronomers have only now gotten to this piece of data from the telescope.