TRAPPIST-1 Planet Lineup · NASA · NASA — public domain
TRAPPIST-1e
Sign in to saveTRAPPIST-1e is a rocky, close-to-Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone around the ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, located away from Earth in the constellation of Aquarius. Astronomers used the transit method to find the exoplanet, a method that measures the dimming of a star when a planet crosses in front of it.
Astronomical data · SIMBAD
- Object type
- Pl
- Distance
- 41 light-years
- Coordinates
- RA 346.6224° · Dec -5.0414°
via SIMBAD · CDS Strasbourg
Key facts
- Planet.name
- TRAPPIST-1e
- Planet.image
- TRAPPIST-1e artist impression 2018.png
- Planet.caption
- Artist's impression of TRAPPIST-1e from 2018, depicted here as a tidally locked planet with a liquid ocean. The actual appearance of the exoplanet is currently unknown, but based on its density, it is likely not entirely covered in water.
- Planet.discoverer
- Michaël Gillon et al.
- Planet.discovery_site
- Spitzer Space Telescope
- Planet.discovered
- 22 February 2017
- Planet.discovery_method
- Transit
- Planet.apsis
- astron
- Planet.star
- TRAPPIST-1
- Planet.surface_grav
- g
- Planet.single_temperature
- Teq: ()
- Planet.atmosphere_composition
- None or mostly N2, with trace amounts of CH4 and CO2
via Wikipedia infobox
~12 min read
Encyclopedic overview
14 sectionsContents
- Physical characteristics
- Mass, radius, density, composition and temperature
- Host star
- Orbit
- Atmosphere
- Habitability
- 2018 studies
- 2024 studies
- 2025 studies
- Discovery
- Gallery
- Videos
- See also
- References
TRAPPIST-1e is a rocky, close-to-Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone around the ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, located away from Earth in the constellation of Aquarius. Astronomers used the transit method to find the exoplanet, a method that measures the dimming of a star when a planet crosses in front of it.
The exoplanet was one of seven discovered orbiting the star using observations from the Spitzer Space Telescope. Three of the seven (e, f, and g) are in the habitable zone/"goldilocks" zone. TRAPPIST-1e is similar to Earth's mass, radius, density, gravity, temperature, and stellar flux. It is also confirmed that TRAPPIST-1e lacks a cloud-free hydrogen-dominated atmosphere, meaning that if the planet has an atmosphere it is more likely to have a compact atmosphere like the terrestrial planets in the Solar System.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “TRAPPIST-1e” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.