Planets. The 786 Known Planets. Weird World! 'Oozing' Alien Planet Is a Super-Earth Wonder. A new look at an alien planet that orbits extremely close to its parent star suggests that the rocky world might not be a scorching hot wasteland, as was thought.
In fact, the planet may actually be stranger and wetter than astronomers ever imagined. The exotic planet 55 Cancri e is a relatively close alien planet, just 40 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Cancer (The Crab). The super-dense world circles so close to its host star that it takes a mere 18 hours to complete one orbital lap. Using our solar system for comparison, 55 Cancri e is 26 times closer to its parent star than Mercury is to the sun, according to NASA officials. Because of its tight orbit around its stellar host, 55 Cancri e was long thought to harbor surface temperatures as high as 4,800 degrees Fahrenheit (about 2,700 degrees Celsius), researchers have said.