About this world
GJ 581 e is a super-Earth orbiting GJ 581, a cool red dwarf (type M3.0V) 20.5 light-years from Earth. It is about 1.4 times the size of Earth (its size estimated from its mass) and holds 2.5 Earth masses. It completes an orbit every 3.15 days at 0.028 AU from its star, closer than Mercury is to the Sun.
Its equilibrium temperature is about 554 K (281 °C): far too hot for liquid water on its surface. By the "cosmic shoreline", its star has probably stripped its atmosphere away, leaving bare rock.
It was discovered in 2009 by radial velocity with La Silla Observatory. The star wobbles toward and away from us, Doppler-shifting its spectrum. GJ 581 has 3 known planets; the others are GJ 581 b and GJ 581 c.