Anyone up for travelling 855 light-years?
An exoplanet nicknamed “hot Jupiter” that’s located 855 light-years from Earth has an atmosphere full of metal and skies that rain gems.
New research published by the Nature Astronomy journal revealed that gaseous exoplanet WASP-121b possesses a rather unique atmosphere. Due to the planet being tidally locked with one side constantly facing the sun, the cooler side’s atmosphere houses metals not unknown to us back on Earth.
Using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers were able to measure the temperature of the planet. They found that the dayside exhibits soaring temperatures of 3,000 degrees Celsius, while the nightside is slightly colder at 1,500 degrees.
Thomas Mikal-Evans, from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and a lead author of the research, said metals found in the atmosphere include magnesium, iron, vanadium, chromium, and nickel. Water-based clouds would immediately evaporate on WASP-121b, but metals in gaseous states condense in specific environments like the one found on the exoplanet.
The result? Clouds lined with metals and precious gems.
“I don’t think we can say what they’d look like for sure, because cloud formation is complicated and we don’t have clouds like these to observe up close in our own solar system,” Mikal-Evans told Mashable. However, the astronomer suggests that the clouds could resemble dust storms seen on Earth.
Researchers suspect that “some of the clouds would have red and blue colouration” which is caused by specific minerals. Aluminium condenses to become the mineral corundum, which in turn makes rubies and sapphires. By this logic, such clouds could contain flecks of precious gems.
“Liquid gems could therefore be raining on the nightside hemisphere of WASP-121b,” the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy said via press release.
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