Clouds in Atmosphere of Exoplanet GJ 1214b (Artist’s View)

This is an illustration of the hypothetical appearance of the exoplanet GJ 1214b, which is known as a "super-Earth" type planet because it is slightly more than six Earth masses. Spectroscopic observations with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope provide evidence of high clouds blanketing the planet. These clouds hide any information about the composition and behavior of the world's lower atmosphere and surface. The composition of the clouds is unknown. GJ1214b is located 40 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Ophiuchus.

About the data

The Hubble data are from proposal 13021 : J. Bean (University of Chicago), J.-M. Desert (California Institute of Technology), S. Seager (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), D. Deming (University of Maryland), B. Benneke (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Z. Berta-Thompson (Harvard University), K. Stevenson (University of Chicago), and D. Homeier (Lyon Centre for Astrophysics Research).

The science team includes: L. Kreidberg and J. Bean (University of Chicago), J.-M. Desert (California Institute of Technology), B. Benneke (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), D. Deming (University of Maryland), K. Stevenson (University of Chicago), S. Seager (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Z. Berta-Thompson (Harvard University), A. Seifahrt (University of Chicago), and D. Homeier (Lyon Centre for Astrophysics Research).