Nearby Volcano Planet Likely Fueled by Tidal Heating

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https://eos.org/articles/nearby-volcano-planet-likely-fueled-by-tidal-heating

By Javier Barbuzano, Eos/AGU. 

Excerpt: An unusual planetary dance has produced an Earth-sized exoplanet brimming with volcanoes, likely furnished with an atmosphere, and maybe even containing water on its surface. Astronomers discovered this odd world orbiting a red dwarf star right in our galactic neighborhood—just 90 light-years away. The exoplanet, known as LP 791-18 d, orbits a red dwarf already known to host two other planets: LP 791-18 b, a scorched, rocky world orbiting extremely close to the star, and LP 791-18 c, a sub-Neptune 7 times more massive than Earth made of gas or icy material. The finding comes after a group of researchers led by astrophysicist Björn Benneke of the Université de Montréal in Canada used NASA’s recently retired Spitzer Space Telescope to take a closer look at the system....

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