This is the conclusion of a study by 12 astronomers published in Nature Astronomy.
WASP-121b is what scientists a’hete Jupiter‘, a class of gas giants that resemble Jupiter but are very close to their star. The planet is so close to its star that it takes only 30 hours to make one orbit. Due to that short distance, temperatures on the day side rise to about 3000 degrees Celsius.
Due to the very short distance, WASP-121b also has a synchronous rotation, which means that the same side always faces the star. This ensures that the side facing the sun is a lot hotter than the night side. Because of that enormous temperature difference, a lot of strange weather phenomena arise on the planet.
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Metallic Clouds
Because the day side is permanently turned towards the sun, it is so hot there that even metals such as iron and chromium evaporate. Water vapor does not survive the temperatures and is broken down into hydrogen and oxygen atoms.
As soon as those atoms end up on the night side again, they combine to form water again. However, it is still too hot there to form water clouds. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t clouds on the planet. From the new study it now appears that the metals in the atmosphere on the night side could condense into metal clouds.
The most notable discovery the scientists made was that the atmosphere is devoid of aluminum and titanium. According to the authors of the study, a possible explanation for this is that these substances condense on the night side into korund, of which sapphires and rubies are made. That means it could rain liquid gems on the planet.
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Soon more information
The scientists used information obtained from the Hubble-space telescope. The scientists looked at the planet for two full orbits (60 hours). To measure the substances in the atmosphere, they compared changes in the light spectrum emitted by the planet.
However, there is still much to learn about the planet, menen the scientists. For that reason, they would like to take another look at WASP-121b with the James Webb, the new space telescope following Hubble. According to lead author Thomas Mikal-Evans, the team aims to do so within the first year of the James Webb’s commissioning.
Successor to Hubble
The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on Christmas Day last year and has since traveled about 1.6 million kilometers. Now that the telescope is up final destination has arrived the six-month tuning process has begun. Once that process has come to an end early this summer, the telescope will be ready to go into full operation.
Although scientists like Mikal-Evans can use the telescope to observe planets and stars, it has a different main mission. The goal of the James Webb is to find out what the universe looked like when it was very young. In addition, it will be 13.7 billion years in the past to look.
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