Seminar: Lava rain, volatile atmosphere or something else? Tale of a hot rocky world 55 Cnc e as seen by JWST

The nature of the close-in rocky planet 55 Cnc e is puzzling despite having been observed extensively. Its observations from the optical to infrared wavelengths suggest temporal variability from the dayside of the planet. Various hypotheses, including volcanic outgassing, circumstellar dust torus, star-planet interactions etc., have been proposed to explain observations, but none of them could describe every aspect of observations. We obtained time on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to explore the possibility that the variability originates from the planet being in a 3:2 spin-orbit resonance, thus showing different sides during occultations. JWST/NIRCam observed the planet's dayside simultaneously at 2.1 and 4.5 µm on five occasions, of which four were observed within a week. I will discuss the results of this program, which suggest the presence of rapid and strong variability in its dayside emission. I will describe the possible origins of this variability with the help of new multiwavelength observations. Finally, I will show how these and future observations can help us understand the nature of 55 Cnc e and its variability.