2023-06-18 02:00:00
Written by Samah Labib
Sunday, June 18, 2023 05:00 AM
Astronomers studied alien planet A superheated bloat 600 light-years away, they saw elements that would normally form rock, but so hot they vaporized into the atmosphere.
The planet, called WASP-76b, orbits about the mass of Jupiter, but it orbits its star 12 times closer than the planet Mercury to the Sun. Because it is so close, its atmosphere has been heated to 2,000 degrees Celsius, causing it to swell to a size as large as six times the size of a planet. Jupiter. These high temperatures also give astronomers the opportunity to observe hard-to-identify elements in the gas giant’s atmosphere, according to the digitartlend report.
The researchers found a number of elements that would normally be rocks, such as magnesium, calcium and nickel, but due to the extreme temperatures, these elements are already present in the form of a gas on WASP-76b. gas giants such as Jupiter and Saturn, but their concentrations have not been measured.
This means that by studying this exceptionally hot planet, we can learn something new about other gas giants. “Truly rare are the times when an exoplanet hundreds of miles away can Light years can teach us something that would otherwise be impossible to know about our solar system.” “That is the case with this study.”
One theory suggested by the data is that this planet may have swallowed up a smaller planet at some point in its history, which was more like Mercury. Mercury is composed of metallic compounds and silicates, unlike the basic helium and hydrogen that make up the gas giants.
Another interesting discovery here is the first detection in an exoplanet of vanadium oxide, a compound that can have a significant effect on exoplanet atmospheres.
“This molecule is of great interest to astronomers because it can have a significant impact on the structure of the atmospheres of hot giant planets,” Pelletier said. This molecule plays a similar role to ozone, being very effective in heating the Earth’s upper atmosphere.
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