Different scientific organizations announced a few days ago new details about the atmosphere of an exoplanet similar to Jupiter and Saturn. The celestial body orbits its massive star in a very close region, which causes it to register high temperatures.
The exoplanet itself, located about 700 light years away from Earth, was discovered in 2011 with the instruments of the Hubble Space Telescope. At that time they identified it as WASP-39b. Now, with the help of Webb, better details of its structure began to be collected.
It was surprising that despite its proximity to its sun (it makes a complete turn in 4 days), it had records of water in its atmosphere.
Specifically, according to the scientific data offered by the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, the following have been detected on this exoplanet: Sulfur Dioxide, Sodium, Carbon Monoxide, Methane, Hydrogen Sulfide, Potassium and most amazingly, water vapor and carbon dioxide.
Many of these elements had already been detected and with James Webb they were confirmed. In fact, sulfur dioxide is one of the few novelties. Items related to water had already been recorded.
And it is precisely the coexistence between the two states that caught the attention of scientists. It is not that both cannot be together in an atmosphere, it is that their proximity to their star makes it more understood about the formation of exoplanets and their differences with ours. Solar system.
#NASAWebb has revealed an exoplanet atmosphere as never seen before! Observations of WASP-39b show fingerprints of atoms and molecules, as well as signs of active chemistry and clouds. (1/5) pic.twitter.com/6CjpeGW7vh
— Space Telescope Science Institute (@SpaceTelescope) November 22, 2022
Sulfur and water on the exoplanet
“The abundance of sulfur relative to hydrogen indicated that andThe planet presumably experienced a significant buildup of planetesimals that can deliver these ingredients to the atmosphere,” explained Kazumasa Ohno, a UC Santa Cruz exoplanet researcher who worked with the James Webb data.
“The data also indicates that oxygen is much more abundant than carbon in the atmosphere. This potentially indicates that WASP-39 b originally formed far from the central star.”
The fact that it is now in a region closer to the sun opens up a whole new universe of possibilities.