NASA has found a lava world that is straight out of a sci-fi movie.
The iconic space exploration agency has played a vital role in developing our understanding of some of the most mind-boggling mysteries of the cosmos. And a recent discovery made by the James Webb telescope has shed light on a strange and alien planet.
How would you feel if night never existed on Earth?
How the groundbreaking James Webb telescope has changed the universe
The now-famous James Webb telescope was truly a marvel of modern science and engineering.
JWST has found massive mature galaxies that formed a mere 700 million years after the Big Bang. These huge space clusters should not have had the time to grow so big, meaning that our previous understanding of how the universe formed may be slightly off.
It has also made record-breaking discoveries since being launched only a few years ago.
JWST found the most distant galaxy ever seen by humans. JADES-GS-z14-0 existed a mere 290 million years after the Big Bang. The astonishing telescope can peer through the mountains of space dust and cosmic fog to reveal previously unseen celestial objects.
Space exploration has become the major focal point for humanity
Thanks to the efforts of the James Webb Space Telescope, we have developed a far more complex understanding of the cosmos.
From new findings of “space volcanoes” that shoot massive jets of energy outwards in a light show of the cosmos, to the more recent discovery of habitable planets near us, the universe is becoming that much easier to understand.
And we have only begun to scratch the surface of space exploration.
New Earth-based telescopes have been developed that have caught images of ghost stars that died long before the Earth even existed.
NASA has noted that the James Webb Telescope has been searching the cosmos for the next major revelation in cosmic science. And what it recently found may shed light on an ancient lava world that is straight out of Star Wars.
Thanks to our collective space exploration technology, we have identified two types of dark matter that hold the universe together.
NASA Science has recently found that a unique type of world where night never comes to darken the planet and day lasts forever, almost.
A lava world where day lasts for as long as time and night never existed
NASA has found a planet they have dubbed 55 Cancri e, which is a lava world that acts like a “space hot pocket” that never cools down.
The planet is so close to its star that a single orbit can take place in just 18 hours, something that takes an entire year here on Earth. It has a massive magma ocean that essentially creates its own air, acting like a giant bubbling can of your favorite soda drink that never loses its gas or heat.
The lava world is so hot that the rock on its surface doesn’t just melt, it is vaporized.
This planet is the ultimate version of “the floor is lava”, and NASA has shifted its theory that it had vast amounts of intense pressure that was forcing it into a diamond-like state of existence.
The lava world is twice as wide and eight times as heavy as our planet, and has become a focal point in studying the deepest regions of the cosmos.
It has a thick atmosphere surrounding its tidally locked structures that redistributes the heat throughout the planet, keeping it at a toasty 4,400°F. Thanks to the findings made by JWST, and long before that, the Hubble telescope, we have painted a clear picture of the observable universe.
How does this discovery of a “lava world” affect your perception of the universe?