55 Cancri e (55 Cnc e) is a planet of extremes. A rocky body with a radius of approximately 1.8 Earth radii and a period of just 0.74 days, it can be as hot as 3,000 K on the dayside and more than 1,500 K colder on the nightside. 55 Cnc e also exhibits substantial but difficult-to-explain variations in the occultation depth that might hold clues to the elusive nature of its surface and putative atmosphere. Jayshil Patel and colleagues try to elucidate this behaviour with JWST.

The authors analyse 5 occultations of 55 Cnc e obtained by NIRCam at 2.1 μm and 4.5 μm. Both channels show substantial occultation variabilities and the brightness temperatures hint at the presence of an atmosphere. However, the hypothesis that they are caused by a 3:2 asynchronous orbital resonance is excluded because the fluctuations are not correlated with the occultation number parity. More puzzlingly, the variations of the two channels are not correlated with each other either.

55 Cancri e (55 Cnc e) 是一颗极端的行星。它是一个半径约为地球半径 1.8 倍、周期仅为 0.74 天的岩石天体，白天的温度可能高达 3,000 K，而夜晚的温度则可能低 1,500 K 以上。 55 Cnc e 掩星深度也表现出巨大但难以解释的变化，这可能为其表面和假定大气的难以捉摸的性质提供线索。 Jayshil Patel 及其同事试图通过 JWST 来阐明这种行为。

作者分析了 NIRCam 在 2.1 μm 和 4.5 μm 处获得的 55 个 Cnc e 的 5 个掩星。两个通道都显示出巨大的掩星变化，并且亮度温度暗示了大气层的存在。然而，由于涨落与掩星数奇偶性无关，因此排除了它们是由 3:2 异步轨道共振引起的假设。更令人困惑的是，两个通道的变化彼此也不相关。