Artist’s View of Extrasolar Planet GJ1214b

GJ1214b, shown in this artist's view, is a super-Earth orbiting a red dwarf star 40 light-years from Earth. New observations from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope show that it is a waterworld enshrouded by a thick, steamy atmosphere. GJ1214b represents a new type of planet, like nothing seen in our solar system or any other planetary system currently known.

About the data

The image was created from Hubble data from proposal 12251 : Z. Berta, D. Charbonneau, C. Burke, J.-M. Desert, J. Irwin, and P. Nutzman (Harvard University), P. McCullough (STScI), and E. Miller-Ricci and J. Fortney (University of California, Santa Cruz).