Quartz crystals detected in clouds on a planet in another solar system

2023-10-19 23:45:15

It is the first time that something like this has been captured.

The feat was achieved using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which is the result of an international collaboration led by NASA, ESA and CSA, respectively the American, European and Canadian space agencies.

The team of scientists that made the discovery is led by David Grant, from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom.

The planet in whose clouds the quartz crystals have been detected is called WASP-17 b. It is a gas giant like Jupiter, but located very close to its star, which means that it takes only 3.7 Earth days to orbit it, a blink of an eye compared to the 365 days it takes for Earth. Earth going around the Sun.

This proximity of WASP-17 to its star causes infernal heat to reign there. It is believed that the temperature on the planet reaches about 1,500 degrees Celsius.

This solar system is about 1,300 light-years away from Earth.

“We knew from Hubble Space Telescope observations that there must be aerosols (tiny particles that make up clouds or haze) in the atmosphere of WASP-17 b, but we didn’t expect them to be made of quartz,” Grant confesses.

Artist’s recreation of the atmosphere of the gas giant planet WASP-17 b, which is composed primarily of hydrogen and helium, along with small amounts of water vapor and traces of carbon dioxide and other substances. (Image: NASA/ESA/CSA/R. Crawford (STScI))

Silicates (minerals rich in silicon and oxygen) make up most of the Earth and Moon, as well as other rocky objects in our solar system, and are extremely common throughout the galaxy. But silicate grains previously detected in the atmospheres of exoplanets and brown dwarfs appear to be made of magnesium-rich silicates, such as olivine and pyroxene, and not just quartz, which is pure silicon dioxide.

With a volume more than seven times that of Jupiter and a mass less than half that of Jupiter, WASP-17 b is one of the largest and least dense exoplanets (planets outside our solar system).

Grant and his colleagues present the technical details of their discovery in the academic journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters, under the title “JWST-TST DREAMS: Quartz Clouds in the Atmosphere of WASP-17b.” (Source: NCYT from Amazings)