(ORDO NEWS) — Since the discovery of the exoplanet WASP-76b , 640 light-years from Earth , astronomers have known they are dealing with a hellish world that warms up to temperatures where it rains molten iron every day.
But new research shows that conditions on the WASP-76b were even more extreme than scientists had anticipated.
According to a study led by a team of scientists from Cornell University, which was published in the scientific journal Astrophysical Journal Letters, there is a huge amount of calcium in the atmosphere of WASP-76b.
This suggests that the temperature on WASP-76b is significantly higher than previously thought (available data indicated that the atmosphere warms up to 2420 degrees Celsius during the daytime). In addition, scientists have confirmed the effectiveness of new methods and instruments developed to study distant planets.
Weather forecast for WASP-76b
The discovery of calcium in the atmosphere of WASP-76b happened as part of a long-term study of exoplanets using the Gemini North Observatory in Hawaii.
The culmination of this work, according to scientists, will be the emergence of a catalog of exoplanets, which will reveal much more details about the atmospheres of distant worlds than was possible in the recent past.
“As we remotely probe dozens of exoplanets of varying masses and temperatures,” study co-author and Cornell astronomer Ray Jayawardhana wrote in a press release, “we are gaining a fuller picture of the true diversity of alien worlds – from those [exoplanets] that are hot enough to rain iron there, to those with a temperate climate; from those that are larger than Jupiter, to those that are slightly larger than the Earth. “
As for the WASP-76b, we can confidently say that this is a terrible place that is definitely not suitable for living.
As the team continues to explore more and more worlds, the likelihood of finding “Earth 2.0” or even more hospitable planets gradually increases.
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