![]() ![]() "Many questions remain, such as how much water vapor its atmosphere holds," the space agency added. "At 150 light-years, considered 'nearby' in astronomical terms," writes NASA, which is one reason scientists can glean the chemical make-up of its atmosphere. Some 150 light-years from Earth, astronomers detected a "super Neptune" (meaning a planet a little larger than Neptune) with water vapor in its atmosphere. A rare discovery on a "Super Neptune." An artist's conception of a "super Neptune" exoplanet. "The size of the effect of tidal deformation on an exoplanet transit light curve is very small, but thanks to the very high precision of Cheops we are able to see this for the first time," the ESA's Cheops project scientist, Kate Isaak, said in a statement. The Cheops satellite measures tiny changes in light, and was able to observe the planet's odd shape as it passed in front of its star. Ultimately, this tugging has deformed the planet from its once spherical shape. This causes extreme tugging on the planet, a much more intense version of how the moon tugs tides on Earth. The European Space Agency's (ESA) Cheops space telescope (short for CHaracterising Ex OPlanet Satellite), found that WASP-103-b - a planet twice the size of Jupiter - zooms around its star in just a day. A weird "rugby ball-shaped" planet The "rugby ball-shaped" exoplanet WASP-103b. Others grey or green.Īnd, sometimes, the clouds could further condense into droplets, ultimately meaning gems raining from the sky. Some clouds might be colored blue or red. What might such metallic clouds look like? "I don't think we can say what they'd look like for sure, because cloud formation is complicated and we don't have clouds like these to observe up close in our own solar system," Thomas Mikal-Evans, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and a lead author of the research, told Mashable.īut he speculated these extraterrestrial clouds could resemble dust storms on Earth. There, it's cool enough for metals in the high atmosphere - like magnesium, iron, vanadium, chromium, and nickel - to condense into clouds. Recently, researchers found that airborne metals and gems likely exist on the cooler side of WASP-121 b, an exoplanet some 855 light-years from Earth. Sometimes, scientists can even glimpse an exoplanet's atmosphere (a feat that will grow more common with the powerful Webb telescope). It's a strong hint that a planet passed in front of that star. Planetary scientists spot many far-off exoplanets by pointing specialized telescopes, like NASA's legendary Kepler telescope, at distant stars and looking for dips in their brightness. Planet hosts metal clouds and raining gems An artist's conception of the exoplanet WASP-121 b.
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