A surprisingly low reservoir of methane could explain how a planet around a nearby star has become strangely swollen, according to new observations. James Webb Space Telescope (JWST(). The finding shows that planets’ atmospheres can swell to significant amounts without using esoteric theories of planet formation, astronomers say.
“The Webb data tells us that planets like WASP-107 b do not have to form strangely with a very small core and a huge envelope of gas.” Michael LineAn extrasolar planet scientist from Arizona State University said: expression. “Instead we could get something more like this: NeptuneThere’s a lot of rock and not a lot of gas, just turn up the temperature and see what it looks like.”
It was discovered in 2017 by the Wide Angle Search for Planets (WASP) consortium WASP-107 b. light years from Soil inside constellation VirgoIt is among the lightest of the more than 5,000 exoplanets found so far. Even though it’s almost as big JupiterWASP-107 b is only 12% of its weight. gas giantIts mass is equivalent to only 30 Earths. For context, one mass of Jupiter is approximately equal to 318 Earth masses. The team says this planet is so fluffy that its density can be compared to a microwaved marshmallow.
Relating to: Cotton candy exoplanet is the 2nd lightest planet ever found
From earlier observations of WASP-107 b’s size, mass, and age, astronomers suspected that the planet had a small, rocky core surrounded by a rich reservoir of hydrogen and helium gas. But such a scenario failed to fully explain the remarkably bulging sphere, even though it orbited its star about one-seventh the distance between them. Mercury Our Sun, on the other hand, does not receive enough energy from its star to account for its cotton-like density. Alternatively, if the planet’s core had more mass than expected, scientists say the atmosphere would shrink as the planet cooled. timethat is, it would appear smaller than what was observed.
Now, using JWST’s data – combining it with earlier observations Hubble space telescope — two independent teams of astronomers may have solved the puzzle. In short, they discovered that the methane in the planet’s atmosphere was one-thousandth of what was expected for this world. Because methane is unstable at high temperatures, astronomers say the surprisingly low amount is evidence that gas from deep within the planet is “strongly mixing with cooler layers above.” David Sing The statement mentioned Johns Hopkins University (JHU) in Maryland, which led one of the two new studies. “The fact that we detected so little, despite detecting other carbon-bearing molecules, tells us that the planet’s interior must be significantly hotter than we thought.”
The extra heat is likely due to the fact that WASP-107 b orbits its star every 5.7 days in a less-than-perfect circle orbit, the researchers say. The star’s constant gravitational pull on WASP-107 b, which varies throughout its distance from its star, heats the planet by stretching and contracting its profile. A similar force on Earth moon causing high and low tides.
The planet’s hot core, combined with tidal heating from its star, also changes the chemistry of gases deep within the planet. Victory RustamkulovD., a graduate student at JHU and co-author of one of the two new studies. expression from university. “We think this heat causes the chemistry of the gases to change, specifically destroying methane and creating large amounts of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.”
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In 2020, a team of astronomers including Sing detected helium in the atmosphere of WASP-107 b, marking the first time this gas has been detected on an exoplanet. The element, which was temporarily detected on Earth in 2018 and whose existence was confirmed two years later, was seen to extend into space as a thin cloud. Astronomers say that because this planet’s atmosphere has been blown away so far, ultraviolet radiation from WASP-107 b’s star is slowly stripping the earth’s air; to be more specific, about 0.1% to 4% of the atmosphere’s mass every billion years, resulting in the formation of a comet – a tail-like tail extending behind the sphere.
Thanks to the planet’s extremely puffy nature, astronomers can look about 50 times deeper into its atmosphere than on a world like Jupiter. For example, JWST observations of WASP-107 b’s atmosphere last year showed that: rain sand on the planet.
This research is described as follows: two studies It was published Monday, May 20, in the journal Nature.