Scientists have discovered signs of tectonic activity on a super Earth that is midday and midnight eternal.
It is the super-Earth LHS 3844b, orbiting a red dwarf located 49 light years away in the constellation Indus. According to research recently published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, this super Earth is showing clear signs of tectonic activity.
In the solar system, our Earth is the only planet undergoing tectonic activity and it is one of the factors that helps the planet to keep its environment and atmosphere conducive to life. A moon, Jupiter’s Io, also exhibits excessive tectonic activity, creating a “hellish” volcanic world.
At LHS 3844b, tectonic activity occurs in the “shadow hemisphere” of the planet. Because it is located too close and is greatly affected by the gravitational pull of the parent star, the planet is “locked” to the star just as the moon is locked to Earth: always facing the star. mother star on one side only. Therefore, one of its hemispheres is always daytime, the other only has nighttime.
Lead author of the study Dr Tobias Meier, astronomer at the Center for Space and Environment at the University of Bern (Switzerland), said the severe temperature contrast between the two hemispheres created a physical flow inside the planet. Matter is constantly flowing from one hemisphere to another, causing volcanic eruptions on half the planet, unlike the other half. Surprisingly, the half-volcano is the hemisphere of darkness.
Similar deep-layer currents on Earth are responsible for the volcanic chains in Hawaii and Iceland.
However, it is clear that this super-Earth is too close to the mother star and is a difficult environment due to its locking, so it can only be a dead world like the moon Io. Tectonic activity is only one of the conditions necessary for life, in order to live, the planet also needs to maintain a moderate distance from its mother star, to have liquid water, a sufficiently thick atmosphere and a magnetic field. enough against cosmic radiation …
The Sci-News newspaper added that this super Earth was discovered in 2018 by NASA’s TESS mission. It has a radius of 1.3 times that of Earth and an orbital period of 11 hours. Her daytime face has an average temperature of 770 degrees Celsius, while her nighttime face is always minus 250 degrees Celsius.
