Researchers from Heidelberg have examined an exoplanet. Its atmosphere is extraordinary in several respects.
Heidelberg – The expanses of space are so unimaginably large that astronomers will probably not lose the potential for new discoveries anytime soon. Even our immediate neighbors are still providing new insights. For example, Chinese researchers found a “mysterious hut” on the far side of the moon (BW24* reported).
Astronomers regularly aim their telescopes at much greater distances. They were able to discover an exoplanet outside of our galaxy* for the first time. However, when it comes to examining such distant objects more closely, science often reaches its limits. It is all the more astonishing what researchers from Baden-Württemberg* have now succeeded in doing. As Golem reports, a team from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) in Heidelberg has examined the atmosphere of an exoplanet.
Researchers from Heidelberg study exoplanets using a space telescope
The analysis of the atmosphere was made possible by the Hubble Space Telescope. The discovery of the exoplanet is nothing new. The Jupiter-like giant gas planet Wasp-121 has been known to astronomers since 2015. Such celestial bodies particularly attract the attention of researchers because they are looking for conditions conducive to life. Just recently, researchers discovered an Earth-like planet* where the “conditions could be just right.”
However, this is not the case on Wasp-121 b. The conditions that prevail on the gas planet are exciting, but anyway. Because the processes in the atmosphere of the planet, 855 light years away from us, sound as if they had been dreamed up by a science fiction author. The relationship of the exoplanet to its central star alone is absurd. It is so close that it only takes 30 hours to circumnavigate it. As a reminder: Our earth needs 365 days, i.e. a terrestrial year, to go around the sun once.
Giant gas planet Wasp-121 b: Inhospitable but extraordinary conditions
Also, similar to our Moon, exoplanet Wasp-121 b’s rotation is orbit-locked. So there is a constant front and back, or a day and night side. Because the giant gas planet is so close to its central star, this leads to extreme temperatures of up to 3,000 degrees Celsius on the day side – water molecules break down into their atomic components. The night side is correspondingly much cooler and “only” reaches 1,500 degrees.
The enormous temperature differences mean that extremely strong winds blow between the two hemispheres. However, clouds of water cannot form because the temperatures are too high for this. But there are still clouds and precipitation – at least on the night side of the giant gas planet Wasp-121 b. However, they consist of metals such as iron, magnesium, chromium and vanadium.
All of that would actually be science fiction enough. But the Heidelberg team’s investigation of the exoplanet doesn’t end with clouds of metal. Because precipitation also has nothing in common with that on our planet. Instead of water, liquid gems fall on Wasp-121 b. Aluminum and oxygen first combine to form the mineral corundum. Ruby or sapphire is formed by reacting again with chromium, iron, titanium or vanadium. A pity that the exoplanet is too hostile to life and too far away to become rich there as a human being. *BW24 is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.
