LIGHT IS SEEN FROM SUPER-EARTH FOR THE FIRST TIME.

Before we get started: no, the "Super-Earth" is not a habitable world. The planet I'm talking about is 55 Cancri e, which was discovered in 2004. Its only called a super-Earth because of its size and mass. It's mass is about 8 times greater than Earths and its about double in width.

Light was detected from 55 Cancri e for the first time this past week, and was detected by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Many astronomers are calling this a historic achievement because it's the first time light from a rocky super-earth has been seen. Because the side that faces the parent star reaches up to 1,726 degrees Celsius (3,140 degrees Fahrenheit) water cannot exist on the planet in a state that most humans are common with. It can however exist in a "supercritical fluid" state which can be thought of as a gas in a liquid state. Sometimes this happens on Earth in steam engines.

Spitzer found light from another planet in 2005, but it was a gas giant in an orbit extremely close to it's parent star. The alien solar system 55 Cancri e is a part of includes another four exoplanets. The star the exoplanets circle around is called 55 Cancri and the system is found in the constellation Cancer.

SUPERMOON THIS SATURDAY

You should look at the moon on the 5th of May. More precisely, at 11:34 P.M. Eastern Time. Why? Well the moon is set to be about 16 times brighter and bigger than usual. This is because it will be at it's closest to the Earth. This point on the moon's orbit is called the perigee. The moon is 221,802 miles away from the Earth at this point, and while it may seem like that is a lot of miles, it's almost nothing on the astronomical scale. 

So, the moon reaches it's perigee at 11:34 P.M.. What else is special about Saturday? Well, the moon is also going to be full. So the view will be even more spectacular. An interesting thing that will happen is that the full moon will happen at around 11:34 P.M. while the perigee is reached at 11:35 P.M., which rarely happens.

The photo below is the moon at its perigee in 2011. It is rising over the Cascade Mountains in Seattle.