Astronomers have found a “hellish” planet, whose atmosphere can vaporize iron
MOSCOW, Aug 3 — RIA Novosti. Astronomers first studied the properties of the stratosphere one of the giant exoplanets, and found that it heat up to such temperatures that would vaporize iron and other metals, according to a paper published in the journal Nature.
“When we first aimed the Hubble at WASP-121b, we saw the glow of the water molecules, which are indicated on the clear stratosphere on this “hot Jupiter”. Our theoretical calculations has been pointed out that some planets can be very hot in the stratosphere strongly influence the chemistry and physics of the entire atmosphere,” says Tom Evans (Tom Evans) from the University of Exeter (UK).
Hellish
Over the last ten years astronomers have discovered thousands of planets outside the Solar system, part of which was similar to Earth in size, while others are reduced or enlarged copies of Jupiter. Now planetary scientists are actively working on the study of the atmosphere to assess whether they exist in life, and uncovering the history of the formation.
Great progress in this direction was achieved in the study of “hot Jupiters” — the largest and most convenient for the study of planets outside the Solar system. Their red-hot atmosphere was similar in composition to the gas envelope of Jupiter and Saturn, composed primarily of hydrogen, helium and hydrocarbons and the heavens, astronomers have discovered an exotic glass and leaden clouds and rain of precious stones.
As Evans says, enough scientists have long suspected that many “hot Jupiters”, with record high temperatures of the surface and atmosphere, can have an even more red-hot stratosphere, the temperature of which, as well as her “namesake” on Earth, growing as the distance from the surface of the gas giant.
Today’s telescopes are too small to directly observe the atmosphere of such planets, so scientists have to look for their traces in the glow of the stars orbit “hot Jupiters”, based on the properties of the earth’s stratosphere and computer models of hot gas giants.