Astronomers have discovered an exoplanet that has a absolved atmosphere with no clouds , only the second - ever exoplanet like this discover . It ’s also the first - ever cloudless “ live Jupiter ” discovered , give astronomy an unbelievable opportunity to study these unusual public in more item .
The finding , issue inThe Astrophysical Journal Letter , describe the observations ofWASP-62bby the Hubble Space Telescope . First name in 2012 , the major planet is locate 575 light - years from Earth and is a " hot Jupiter " , a gas pedal giant that revolve very close to its ace , make it very hot . It has a mass of just half our Jupiter or about 180 Earths .
The researchers followed the planet for three domain around its sun , which are relatively quick – just 4.5 days compared to our Jupiter ’s 12 age . As the planet go along in front of the whizz , the starlight is filtered through the satellite ’s atmosphere , which is how astronomer discover what chemical substance elements are present around a planet .
" For my thesis , I have been working on exoplanet delineation . I take chance upon planet and I follow up on them to characterise their atmosphere , " go author Munazza Alam , a alumnus researcher at the Center for Astrophysics , said in astatement . " I ’ll let in that at first I was n’t too excited about this planet . But once I started to take a face at the data point , I got excited . "
The researchers were looking for K and sodium in the planet ’s atmosphere . They did not find atomic number 19 , but what was incredible was how launch the chemical touch for Na was . " This is smoke - gun grounds that we are seeing a clear atmosphere , " Alam say .
The determination is very important for several reasons . Cloud - liberal planet beyond the Solar System are a rarity . It ’s possible to study the standard atmosphere of only a small fraction of all the discovered exoplanets , so finding a few that are cloudless is an incredible breakthrough .
There is only one other known cloudless planet presently , WASP-96b , discovered in 2018 . It has a mass similar to Saturn but orb very nigh to its wiz so is chuff up from the heat to 20 percent larger than Jupiter . found on these two exoplanet instance , astronomer estimate that about 7 per centum of all exoplanets in the galaxy have a clear atmosphere .
Without the hurdle of cloud or haze , we can study these world in more detail . We can work out what they are made of and hear how they came to be , which may be unlike from other planets with clouds . forthcoming instruments such as the James Webb Space Telescope will help with these notice , study the atmospheres of this and many more worlds .
