55 Cancri e
Skies sparkle above a never-ending ocean of lava
55 Cancri e is a rocky super-Earth slightly larger than our home world. It’s 65 times closer to its star than Earth is to our Sun, so it’s hot, so hot that it would melt rock, creating an ocean of lava.
And because the planet is so toasty, silicate evaporates into the atmosphere and forms into sparkly clouds that reflect the lava below.
This is no moon! 55 Cancri e, also known as Janssen, shares the system with at least five other planets, including Galileo, shown here.
The people are shown in a protective bubble because of the incredible heat and toxic gasses from the molten rock. We portray fluid dynamics at work in this imagined technology.
55 Cancri is a binary system, made up of two stars. 55 Cancri e and its sibling planets all orbit the larger, primary star, which is about the same size as our Sun.
The hardest thing to illustrate was the lava! Because it’s so hot, it would be thin, like water, perhaps.
