2024-07-12 00:11:14
An exoplanet with a beautiful blue hue is actually a hostile place to life. Scientists say that another bad trait has been added to its many bad traits.
The exoplanet HD 189733b, discovered in 2005, already had the reputation of being a hellish place. But the gas giant, plagued by molten glass rain, is not only scorching hot and whipped by violent atmospheric winds. It is also said to smell terribly, as scientists at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore (USA) have now discovered.
In their study published in the journal “Nature,” they cite the latest data from the James Webb Space Telescope. According to this, a trace of hydrogen sulfide was detected for the first time in the atmosphere of HD 189733b. The colorless and flammable gas is considered corrosive and is known for a smell that we humans associate with rotten eggs.
So a real stink bomb in space? “Yes, the stench adds to HD 189733b’s already bad reputation,” said astrophysicist and study author Guangwei Fu on the university’s website. “This is not a planet that we humans want to visit, but it is a valuable destination to deepen our understanding of planetary research.”
HD 189733b is known as a “hot Jupiter”. It is similar to the gas giant Jupiter in our solar system, but it is much hotter due to its proximity to its parent star. According to scientists, the temperature on the side facing the sun is around 930 degrees Celsius. In contrast to Jupiter, which takes twelve years to orbit our sun, HD 189733b completes an orbit around its fixed star every two days.
The exoplanet is actually quite close to our solar system. HD 189733b is “only” 64 light years away from Earth in the constellation Vulpecula. “The short distance makes it bright and easy to study in detail. The detection of hydrogen sulfide, as described here, would be much more difficult on other, far-away planets, for example,” says Fu.