by From Will Dunham
Washington (Reuters) – Astronomers for the first time have deciphered the three -dimensional structure of the atmosphere of a planet beyond our solar system and revealed three layers like a wedding cake on a wildly hot gas planet, which surrounds itself near a star Bigger and hotter than our sun.
Through the atmosphere of WASP-121B, a planet, the researchers also called Tylos by combining all four telescopic units of the Chile-based, very large telescope of the European southern observatory, and capturing a layer of layers with different chemical compositions and intensive winds .
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So far, researchers have been able to determine the atmospheric chemical composition for some planets outside of our solar system – called exoplanets – without mapping the vertical structure or how the chemical elements were distributed.
WASP-121B is an “ultra-Hot-Jupiter”, a class of large gas planets that circle near her guest star, which makes it extremely hot. Its atmosphere mainly consists of hydrogen and helium, like that of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system. But the atmosphere of WASP-121B is not like something that has ever been seen before.
The researchers differentiated three layers by looking for the presence of specific elements. The lower layer of WASP -121B was marked by the presence of iron – a metal in gaseous form due to the incredible heat of the atmosphere. Winds move gas from the eternal hot side of the planet to its cooler side.
The average layer was characterized by the presence of sodium, whereby a jet current blew around the planet in a circle, the approximately 43,500 miles (70,000 km) per hour – stronger than all winds in our solar system. The upper layer was characterized based on its hydrogen, with part of this layer lost into space.
“This structure has never been observed before and defies the current predictions of how atmospheres should behave” study that was published in the Nature magazine this week.
The researchers also recognized Titan in gaseous form in the atmosphere of WASP-121B. There are no iron or titanium in the atmosphere on earth because they are metal compared to WASP-121B due to the lower temperatures of our planet. The earth has a layer of sodium in the upper atmosphere.
“For me, the most exciting part of this study is that it works with current telescopes and instruments at the limits,” said co-author Bibiana Prinoth, a doctoral student in astronomy at Lund University in Sweden.
WASP-121B has approximately the same mass as Jupiter, but twice the same diameter, which makes it more striking. It is about 900 light years from the earth towards the Constellation Puppis. A light year is the distance light in one year, 9.5 trillion km (5.9 trillion miles).
WASP-121B is neatly locked up, which means that one side of it is constantly on its star and the other side is gone, like the moon to earth. The page, which is aligned with the star, has a temperature of around 4,900 degrees Fahrenheit (2,700 degrees Celsius/3,000 degrees Kelvin). The other side is around 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit (1,250 degrees Celsius/1,500 degrees Kelvin).
The planet revolves its star to about 2.5% of earth removal to the sun. It is about a third closer to its star than the innermost planet Mercury of our solar system is the sun – so close that it ends a orbit in 1.3 days.
His host, called Wasp-121, is about 1-1/2 times the mass and the diameter of the sun and hotter.
To be able to recognize the structure of the atmosphere of an exoplanet could be helpful if astronomers are looking for smaller rocky planets that can accommodate life.
“In the future, we will probably be able to deliver similar observations for smaller and cooler planets and thus more similar to the earth” than the largest optical telescope in the world.
“These detailed studies are required to provide a context for our place in the universe,” said Seidel. “Is the earth’s climate unique? Can theories that we derive from a data point – earth – actually explain the entire population of exoplanets?”
“With our study we showed that climate can behave as predicted. There is much more diversity than what we have at home,” added Seidel.
(Reporting according to Will Dunham, editing of Rosalba O’Brien)
