Secrets of 'Hellish' Planet Where Lava Might Rain From Sky About to Be Probed by NASA

The planet’s surface is “thought to be covered in oceans of lava”, NASA says, as surface temperatures on the distant world are “far above the melting point of typical rock-forming minerals”.

NASA scientists are expected to gain new insight into a distant world whose landscape may well resemble the biblical hell.

The planet in question is a called 55 Cancri e is located about 50 light-years away from Earth, and orbits a Sun-like star at a distance of less than 1.5 million miles, which is one twenty-fifth of the distance between Mercury and the Sun.

With the surface temperature on the planet apparently “far above the melting point of typical rock-forming minerals”, the day side of 55 Cancri e “is thought to be covered in oceans of lava”, NASA reported last week.

“Imagine if Earth were much, much closer to the Sun. So close that an entire year lasts only a few hours”, reads the description of the planet provided by the space agency. “So close that gravity has locked one hemisphere in permanent searing daylight and the other in endless darkness. So close that the oceans boil away, rocks begin to melt, and the clouds rain lava”.

NASA also pointed to the possibility that the planet may have a day-night cycle, instead of being tidally locked, and that it could thus possess a thin atmosphere which forms as the surface heats up, melts, and vaporises during the day.

“In the evening, the vapor would cool and condense to form droplets of lava that would rain back to the surface, turning solid again as night falls”, the space agency suggests.

55 Cancri e was named as one of the first investigation targets for NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope, which is expected to become fully operational this month.