- By James Kuanal
- Thu, 12 Mar 2020 09:41 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
New Delhi | Jagran Lifestyle Desk: A new exoplanet, WASP-76b, has been discovered by the scientists where the temperatures are so high that molten iron rains from the sky. Situated 390 light-years away towards constellation Pisces, it has days where the surface temperature exceeds 2.400-degree Celcius-- enough to evaporate metals. Its nights with strong winds then cools down so that it condenses into drops of iron.
David Ehrenreich, a researcher at the University of Geneva, said, "The only explanation possible for this phenomenon is that it rains iron on the dark side of this exoplanet with extreme conditions," as quoted by Associated Press.
It is the first instance that chemical reactions have been detected in a giant ultra-hot planet.
On WASP 76b, iron raindrops might tear through your umbrella like tissue paper. https://t.co/c0cBRVNYgw
— Science News (@ScienceNews) March 11, 2020
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The results have been recorded with a high-resolution spectrograph ESPRESSO (Echelle Spectrograph for Rocky Exoplanets and Stable Spectroscopic Observations), an instrument co-directed by the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) and installed on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), in Chile.
Like Moon around the Earth, the planet always keeps the same face towards its stars as it rotates around it, causing extreme temperature between day and night, explains Jonay I. Gonzalezz Hernandez, Ramon y Cajal researcher at IAC.
With the help of the instrument, astrophysicists have detected the trace of iron vapour just at the division between the daytime and the night time sector of the planet.
The exoplanet receives thousands of times more radiation from its central star that arrives at the Earth from the Sun. The daytime is so extreme that molecules split into atoms and metals like iron evaporate in the atmosphere. The difference of over a thousand degrees between day and night produce strong winds, which takes iron vapour into the coolest part of the exoplanet.
(with agency inputs)
