September 2024

Exoplanet eclipse data
Super Earth Exoplanet 55 Cancri Secondary Eclipse Light Curve
  • Your webmaster has been busy! The class website now features a major update to the Class Projects and Arts Legacy Project areas. All Arts Legacy projects are listed on the Class Projects index page and a page is devoted to each project.
  • The Arts Legacy committee met on September 7 to review funding for prior projects and plan for funding of future projects. The meeting was recorded, and the video is available for viewing. Written minutes of the July 20, 2024 meeting are available. Some of our classmates have wondered what the Arts Legacy committee has been doing. Now is the time to see. You’ll be amazed!
  • More website updates have arrived: the main pages for the Newsletter, Alumni Magazine Column, and D68 DCF Results and the entire obituaries section have been moved to the WordPress platform. Connections between content on the old Muse platform and the new WordPress platform should be seamless. If you encounter navigation problems (a link takes you to an unexpected place), please contact Jim Lawrie.
  • The Fall 2024 Newsletter from Mark Waterhouse is now available on the website as are the last two Alumni Magazine Columns from Jack Hopke.

Scroll down to learn more about this month's featured image from the James Webb Space Telescope and to see more site updates.

Click on the image to enlarge

This artist’s concept shows what the exoplanet 55 Cancri e could look like. Also called Janssen, 55 Cancri e is a so-called super-Earth, a rocky planet significantly larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune, which orbits its star at a distance of only 1.4 million miles (0.015 astronomical units), completing one full orbit in less than 18 hours. (Mercury is 25 times farther from the Sun than 55 Cancri e is from its star.) The system, which also includes four large gas-giant planets, is located about 41 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Cancer. Observations from Webb’s NIRCam and MIRI suggest that the planet may be surrounded by an atmosphere rich in carbon dioxide (CO2) or carbon monoxide (CO). Because it is so close to its star, the planet is extremely hot and is thought to be covered in molten rock. Researchers think that the gases that make up the atmosphere could have bubbled out of the magma. An atmosphere on this planet would likely be complex and quite variable due to interactions with the magma ocean. In addition to carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide, there could be gases like nitrogen, water vapor, sulfur dioxide, some vaporized rock, and even short-lived clouds made of tiny droplets of lava condensed from the air. The star, 55 Cancri, is a K-type star nearly the same size and mass as the Sun, but slightly cooler and dimmer. It is just bright enough to see with the naked eye in a very dark sky. The star and planet are so close to each other that the star would appear 70 times wider in the planet’s sky than the Sun appears in our sky. In addition, because the planet is likely to be tidally locked, from any given point, the star would appear fixed in the sky. This artist’s concept is based on new data gathered by NIRCam and MIRI as well as previous observations from other ground- and space-based telescopes, including NASA’s Hubble and retired Spitzer space telescopes. Webb has not captured any images of the planet.

The featured images on this and other site update pages are taken from the James Webb Telescope images page. Click here to see many more images on the Webb Space Telescope page.

Recent Site Updates

October 2024

Topics Updated

  • Class Projects, Meeting Minutes, Obituary, Reunion Report, Travelogue

Click here to open the monthly update details page. On the details page you will also have access to all monthly updates back to January 2023.

September 2024

Topics Updated

  • Alumni Mag Column, Class Projects, Meeting Minutes, Newsletter

Click here to open the monthly update details page. On the details page you will also have access to all monthly updates back to January 2023.

August 2024

Photograph of planet Neptune with moons and rings

Topics Updated

  • Meeting Minutes, Reunion Announcement

Click here to open the monthly update details page. On the details page you will also have access to all monthly updates back to January 2023.
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