Planet 55 Cnc e, also known as 'Janssen', orbits so close to its sun that a year is shorter than an Earth day.
"We’ve learned about how this multi-planet system — one of the systems with the most planets that we've found — got into its current state," explained study lead author Lily Zhao, a research fellow at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics in New York City.Based on their findings, the scientists Janssen formed in a cooler orbit further from Copernicus and then gradually fell toward its host star.
When it's moving away, it's longer and redder. Using EXPRES, the scientists were able to pinpoint the side of Copernicus spinning away from us and the side spinning toward us as it rotates. They then measured where Janssen was when passing over each side to calculate its orbital trajectory along the star's equator.The new findings could help the scientific community better understand how planets form and change dramatically over time. Venus, for example, has a fiery,When Janssen was first discovered, some scientists doubted its existence. The planet was the first-ever example of an ultra-shoer-period planet, with a year only 18 hours long.
Now that they've shed new light on Janssen, Zhao and her team aim to study other planetary systems. "We’re hoping to find planetary systems similar to ours,” she explained, "and to better understand the systems that we do know about."
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