A planet near us with a day that lasts forever and an eternal night spelled by the eruption of volcanoes

We have little information about exoplanets. Despite the miles out there being confirmed by astronauts, little is known about whether they have air, water or anything else inhabited by them.

We only know sometimes how big they are and even how far they move from their host star.

So the claim that a planet has been discovered around a star containing volcanoes that light up its night sky is huge. To date, researchers have found no evidence of global tectonic activity on planets outside our Solar System.

The innovative work, published this week in Letters of the Astrophysical Journal, belonging to an exoplanet called LHS 3844b, orbiting a red star – the most common type of star in the Milky Way – about 49 light-years away in the Indus constellation.

What we know about this volcanic planet

Here’s everything you need to know about LHS 3844b:

• It’s a “super-Earth”, but just right – the radius is 1.3 times larger than our planet and it got 2.25 times the mass.
• A year on LHS 3844b lasts just 11 hours – which is how fast it takes the orbit of its star.
• Day and night on LHS 3844b last forever. That’s because LHS 3844b is quickly locked to its star, showing one side of it – just like the Moon will be to Earth.
• It is a bare, rocky basalt planet that makes it narrow – about the same as Mercury and the darkness mare on the Moon.
• There seems to be no atmosphere so no accommodation – and at least it is 1,410ºF / 770ºC on its day and -418 ° F / -250 ° C on its night.
• Its host star is a red dwarf type star that is about a fifth the size of our sun.
• His discovery was announced in September 2018 using data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).

What is so strange about LHS 3844b

Its surface is probably covered mostly in dark lava rock, according to observations in 2019 by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. He also discovered that very little heat travels from the star side of the planet to the side of its night. That shows a lack of wind and weather – and therefore no atmosphere.

Now scientists at the University of Bern and the National Competence Center in NCCR PlanetS Research in Switzerland have discovered that the material inside LHS 3844b flows from one hemisphere to another. It could be due to volcanic eruptions on one side of the planet.

How tectonic activity works on LHS 3844b

“Monitoring for signs of tectonic activity is very difficult, because they are usually hidden under an atmosphere,” said Tobias Meier at the Center for Place and Habitat (CSH) at the University of Bern. “We thought that the adverse temperature difference could affect the flow of materials in the interior of the planet. ”

To test that theory, the team ran computer simulations with different strengths of materials and internal heating sources – such as heat from the planet’s core and the decay of radioactive elements.

“Based on what we are used to from Earth, you would expect the material on the hot day to be lighter and therefore flow up, and vice versa,” said co-author Dan Bower at the University of Bern and the NCCR PlanetS. However, some symbols showed the opposite side of a stream. “This inconvenient result is initially due to the change in viscosity with temperature – cold material is stronger so it does not want to bend, break or penetrate into the interior,” Bower said. . “Warm material is less slow – so even hard rock becomes more mobile when heated – and can easily flow into the planet’s interior.”

LHS 3844b appears to operate in a very different way to Earth, where plate tectonics take material from the inside of the planet to the surface and atmosphere, and then transport it on. back under the Earth’s crust – and in doing so helps to live on Earth.

Volcanoes ignite at night on LHS 3844b

The flow of strange material within LHS 3844b has a strange effect. “Regardless of which side of the planet the material flows up, a lot of volcanism would be expected on that particular side,” Bower said. “Earth-like deep eruptions are driving volcanic activity in Hawaii and Iceland.”

The conclusion is that LHS 3844b appears to have one hemisphere with volcanoes and one with almost none.

Next up for LHS 3844b

These conclusions are drawn from computer simulations, so more detailed observations of LHS 3844b are needed – such as a map with a higher resolution of surface temperatures that may emerge from volcanoes.

How long would it take to get to LHS 3844b

Isn’t this good news / While 49-year-old lights are firmly planted in our cosmic backyard, LHS 3844b is far too far away.

If you traveled at a light speed it would take 49 years. Come down to humanity’s fastest moving space probe, New Horizons – which travels at around 33,000 mph / 53,100 – and would take 987,026 years to reach LHS 3844b.

Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.