"The latest findings tell us the planet has hot nights and significantly hotter days," lead author of the study, Cambridge University's Brice Olivier Demory, said in a statement. "This indicates the planet inefficiently transports heat around the planet. We propose this could be explained by an atmosphere that would exist only on the day side of the planet, or by lava flows at the planet surface." Researchers had initially discovered that 55 Cancri e does possess an atmosphere, however this data would suggest that the planet's atmosphere is thin at best. NASA plans to follow up this study with additional observations using the James Webb telescope.