TRAPPIST-1e

Properties:

Mass: 0.772 Earth masses

Temperature: 246.1 K

Semi-Major Axis: 0.02928285 AU

Orbital Period: 6.099043 days

Above is an artist's impression of Trappist-1e.

Trappist-1e is an exoplanet 40 light-years away orbiting Trappist-1, an extremely cool ultra-dwarf star with a temperature less than 2700 K. For reference, our Sun has a temperature around 5772 K. Trappist-1e is in a system with six other exoplanets, but e is the most Earth-like and potentially habitable within that system.

Trappist-1e potentially boasts an Earth-like atmosphere with a rock-iron surface, which is unforeseen in planetary science. Most bodies either have a thick atmosphere, a global liquid ocean, or a rocky surface, but not a combination of these.

While little is known about this planet, it has many similar conditions to Earth despite being tidally locked. This makes it a very promising candidate for habitability and it will be investigated further once the JWST(James Webb Space Telescope) and other powerful telescopes launch.

Citations/Attributions

TRAPPIST-1e. Provided by: Wikipedia. Located at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRAPPIST-1e. License: CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike

File:Artist’s impression of view from one of the middle planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system. Provided by: Wikimedia commons. Located at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Artist%E2%80%99s_impression_of_view_from_one_of_the_middle_planets_in_the_TRAPPIST-1_system.jpg. License: CC BY 4.0