Planetary scientists have had a hard time classifying a world that orbits a faint star in Ophiuchus. Since the planet’s discovery in 2009, they’ve described it as a super-Earth, a mini-Neptune, and a super-Venus. In other words, it’s not like anything in our own solar system.

The planet orbits the star GJ 1214. It’s in the serpent bearer, which is high above the Moon this evening. The star is less than 50 light-years away. But it’s less than one percent as bright as the Sun, so you need a good-sized telescope to see it.

A few years ago, the International Astronomical Union assigned formal names to both the planet and the star. The names come from Kenya, from the Maa language. The star is Orkaria, from the name of a red pigment used by warriors in tribal ceremonies – the color of the star. The planet is Enaiposha – a word for lake or sea, or for their stormy nature.

The planet is bigger and heavier than Earth. That led to its early classification as a super-Earth. But it’s not very dense, which makes it more like a miniature version of Neptune – the smallest of the Sun’s giant planets.

Enaiposha has a thick atmosphere, which is hot because the planet is quite close to the star. Observations by Webb Space Telescope suggest the atmosphere contains a lot of carbon dioxide. That hot C-O-2 atmosphere makes the planet like Venus – one of several identities for this hard-to-classify world.

Script by Damond Benningfield