The Earth’s atmosphere heats up to 2,500 degrees Celsius, which is hot enough to boil some metals. Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STSC)
An international team of researchers led by the National Center Competition at the Research Planets University of Bern And the University of Geneva studied the atmosphere of extreme heat exoplanet WASP-121b. In it, they found a number of aerated metals. Results are the next step in the search for potential habitable worlds.
WASP-121B is an exoplanet located 850 light years from Earth, orbiting its star in less than two days – a process that takes the Earth one year to complete. WASP-121B is very close to its star – 40 times closer to the Earth than the Sun. This near 2, altitude, is also the main cause of temperatures of about 2,500 to 3,000 degrees Celsius. This makes the study an ideal object budget for learning more about ultra-hot worlds.
Researchers led by Jane Hoisemakers examined data collected by high-resolution, chairing research partner Janes Hoisemakers at the National Center for Competition in Research Planets in Bern and Geneva, universities. Harps Spectrograph. They were able to show that a total of at least seven aerated metals occur in the atmosphere of WASP-121B. The results were recently published in the Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics.
Exoplanet runs unexpectedly in the atmosphere of WASP-121B
WASP-121B has been extensively studied since its discovery. “Previous studies have shown that a lot is going on in its environment,” Jens Hoisemakers explains. And despite this fact astronomers believed that super-hot planets have a rather simple atmosphere because such flammable heat does not form many complex chemical compounds. So how did this unexpected complication WASP-121b come about?
“Previous studies have tried to explain these complex observations with theories that don’t seem plausible to me,” says Hoisemakers. Studies suspected that the molecule WASP-121B containing the relatively rare metal vanadium was the main cause of the complex atmosphere. According to Housemakers, this only means that if more common metal, titanium, is lost in this atmosphere. So Hoisemakers and his colleagues began to look for another explanation. “But it turned out that they were right,” the homemakers clearly admit. “My surprise is that we found strong signatures of vanadium in the observations.” At the same time, however, titanium was missing. This, in turn, confirmed the homemakers’ assumptions.
Steam metals
But the team made another, unexpected discovery. In addition to vanadium, they discovered six new metals in the atmosphere of WASP-121B: iron, chromium, calcium, sodium, magnesium and nickel. “All metals evaporated as a result of high temperatures at WASP-121B,” Hoisemakers explains, “thus ensuring that the air on the exoplanet contains evaporative metals, among other things.”
A new era of exoplanet research
Such detailed results allow researchers to draw conclusions about chemical processes taking place on such planets, for example. This is not a critical skill for the distant future, when larger, more sensitive telescopes and spectrographs will be developed. This will allow astronomers to study the properties of small, cold rocky planets like Earth. “Instead of using the same techniques we use today to find signatures of aerated iron or vanadium, we will focus on biosignatures, signs of life such as water, oxygen and methane,” says Hoisemakers.
Extensive knowledge of the atmosphere of WASP-121B not only confirms the superheated character of the exoplanet, but also indicates the fact that the field of research is entering a new era: “After several years the catalog is listed, the researcher explains. That there now, we have not only taken action, but we have really begun to understand what the data of the instruments shows us. How the planets meet and separate from each other. Similarly, perhaps, as Charles Darwin began to develop the theory of evolution after the characterization of numerous species of animals, we began to understand more about how these exoplanets formed and how they functioned.
Reference: “The hot exoplanet is solved with atmospheric transit spectroscopy (HARTS) – IV. V. Oza, V. B. Rear, R. Allert, A. Gabick, C. Lovis, S. N. Yurchenko, N. Estudilo-Defru, D. Baylis, H. Segla, B. Lavi, M. Lendl, C. Mello, F. Murgas, V. Nasimbeni, F. Pepe, D. Sagranson, S. Udry, A. Wittenbeck and K. Hang, 18 September 2020.
DOI: 10.1051 / 0004-6361 / 202038365
Explanatory research with HRPS spectrograph
The HRPS spectrograph is capable of detecting ambient light from distant planets with surprising accuracy. Jens Hoisemakers explains: “Atoms in the exoplanet atmosphere absorb part of the light from each star. Each Atom Thus it has a virtually unique fingerprint of absorbing colors. These fingerprints can be measured with sensitive spectrographs such as HARPS and the chemical composition of the exoplanet’s atmosphere can be taken from them, even if they are many light years away.
The HRPS spectrograph was developed by a consortium led by the Geneva Observatory, which included the Observatory de Hote-Provence, the Institute of Physics at the University of Bern and the Cસce d’Aronomy, Paris.
