Imagine a world with rivers of lava and big pools of extremely hot magma. This animation shows one possible scenario for the toasty rocky planet nearly two times the size of Earth and 40 light-years away. Observations from our Spitzer Space Telescope have led to the first temperature map of this planet. The map reveals extreme temperature swings from one side of the planet to the other, and hints that a possible reason for this is the presence of lava flows. Details: http://go.nasa.gov/1RLLinC |