The exoplanet is named GJ 1252 b and is located just 65 light-years away. It orbits much closer to its host star than the distance between Earth and the Sun, and it has a permanently lit side facing the star, as reported by Space on October 24th.
Simulating the Rocky Planet GJ 1252 b. Image: NASA
Using data from the now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope, researchers revealed that the “day side” temperature of GJ 1252 b reaches 1,228℃, heating it to a point where not only gold, silver, and copper would melt but also making it difficult for the planet to maintain its atmosphere.
Furthermore, GJ 1252 b has a surface pressure of no more than 10 bars (1,000,000 N/m^2). This suggests that if an atmosphere exists, it must be significantly thinner than the atmosphere of Mars.
Astronomers calculated that on GJ 1252 b, an atmosphere thick enough to generate a surface pressure ten times greater than the current value would be stripped away within a million years, significantly shorter than the estimated lifespan of the planet at 3.9 billion years.
Ian Crossfield, the lead author of the study and an astronomer at the University of Kansas, emphasized that this is the smallest known planet with such atmospheric limitations.
In the next phase, Crossfield’s team plans to utilize the more sensitive James Webb Space Telescope to investigate GJ 1252 b further, surpassing the capabilities of the Spitzer telescope.
“Observations in the infrared with Webb have the potential to reveal the surface characteristics of hot rocky planets like this one. Different rock types have different spectral signatures, so we can learn what kind of rocks make up GJ 1252 b,” said co-author Laura Kreidberg, an exoplanet scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany.
Further studies of GJ 1252 b could unveil the planet’s composition and provide a better understanding of hot, relatively small super-Earths for scientists.