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This super-Earth is the first planet confirmed to have a permanent dark side

Convincing evidence of 1:1 tidal locking had been absent until a new analysis of the exoplanet LHS 3844b.
By
  1. Joseph Howlett

Imagine if it were always night-time in the Western Hemisphere and always daytime in the Eastern Hemisphere, and the only way for Londoners to see the Sun was to fly to somewhere like Tokyo.

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Nature 628, 245-246 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00414-z

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 03 April 2024: The standfirst of an earlier version of this article misstated the name of the exoplanet.

References

  1. Lyu, X. et al. Astrophys. J. 964, 152 (2024).

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  2. Kreidberg, L. et al. Nature 573, 87–90 (2019)

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  3. Whittaker, E. A. et al. Astron. J. 164, 258 (2022).

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