Excellent New Astronomy: James Webb Space Telescope finds water in super-hot exoplanet’s atmosphere

(005320.38-E003569.93NHORLOSUC20V)   


Jan‘s Advertisement
White South African Murders page: Murders of Whites from 1996 to 2016
On this page, are collections of the names and details of Whites who were murdered during the period 1996 to 2016. The true number of Whites killed in South Africa since 1994, is stupendous, and nobody has got even a fraction of all the names. But this is the most comprehensive collection that the Boere State Party has currently. My own attorney told me that he thinks 100,000 Whites have been murdered during Black rule.


[This telescope is finding amazing stuff in space. Jan]

The atmosphere of the exoplanet WASP-18 b reaches nearly 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,700 degrees Celsius).

The James Webb Space Telescope has found traces of water vapor in the atmosphere of a super-hot gas giant exoplanet that orbits its star in less than one Earth day.

The exoplanet in question, WASP-18 b, is a gas giant 10 times more massive than the solar system’s largest planet, Jupiter. The planet is quite extreme, as it orbits the sun-like star WASP-18, which is located some 400 light-years away from Earth, at an average distance of just 1.9 million miles (3.1 million kilometers). For comparison, the solar system’s innermost planet, Mercury, circles the sun at a distance of 39.4 million miles (63.4 million km).

Due to such close proximity to the parent star, the temperatures in WASP-18 b’s atmosphere are so high that most water molecules break apart, NASA said in a statement. The fact that Webb managed to resolve signatures of the residual water is a testament to the telescope’s observing powers.

"The spectrum of the planet’s atmosphere clearly shows multiple small but precisely measured water features, present despite the extreme temperatures of almost 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,700 degrees Celsius)," NASA wrote in the statement. "It’s so hot that it would tear most water molecules apart, so still seeing its presence speaks to Webb’s extraordinary sensitivity to detect remaining water."

WASP-18 b, discovered in 2008, has been studied by other telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA’s X-ray space telescope Chandra, the exoplanet hunter TESS and the now-retired infrared Spitzer Space Telescope. None of these space telescopes, however, was sensitive enough to see the signatures of water in the planet’s atmosphere.

"Because the water features in this spectrum are so subtle, they were difficult to identify in previous observations," Anjali Piette, a postdoctoral fellow at the Carnegie Institution for Science and one of the authors of the new research, said in the statement. "That made it really exciting to finally see water features with these JWST observations."

In addition to being so massive, hot and close to its parent star, WASP-18 b is also tidally locked. That means one side of the planet constantly faces the star, just like the moon’s near side always faces Earth. As a result of this tidal locking, considerable differences in temperature exist across the planet’s surface. The Webb measurements, for the first time, enabled scientists to map these differences in detail.

The James Webb Space Telescope detected traces of water in the super hot atmosphere of exoplanet WASP-18 b

The measurements found that the most intensely illuminated parts of the planet can be up to 2,000 degrees F (1,100 degrees C) hotter than those in the twilight zone. The scientists didn’t expect such significant temperature differences and now think that there must be some not yet understood mechanism in action that prevents the distribution of heat around the planet’s globe.

"The brightness map of WASP-18 b shows a lack of east-west winds that is best matched by models with atmospheric drag," co-author Ryan Challener, of the University of Michigan, said in the statement. "One possible explanation is that this planet has a strong magnetic field, which would be an exciting discovery!"

To create the temperature map, the researchers calculated the planet’s infrared glow by measuring the difference in the glow of the parent star during the time the planet transited in front of the star’s disk and then when it disappeared behind it.

"JWST is giving us the sensitivity to make much more detailed maps of hot giant planets like WASP-18 b than ever before," Megan Mansfield, a Sagan Fellow at the University of Arizona and one of the authors of the paper describing the results. said in the statement. "This is the first time a planet has been mapped with JWST, and it’s really exciting to see that some of what our models predicted, such as a sharp drop in temperature away from the point on the planet directly facing the star, is actually seen in the data."

The new study was published online Wednesday (May 31) in the journal Nature.

Source: https://www.space.com/james-webb-water-atmosphere-hot-jupiter-exoplanet-wasp-18b



Jan‘s Advertisement
Video: 2nd Anglo-Boer War: The British Atrocities against the Boers
The 2nd Anglo Boer war is probably the only war where WHITE CHILDREN were the main victims by far! In this video we take a look at the dirty war that the British Army engaged in, in order to crush a tiny army of Dutch-German Farmers (the Boers) here in Africa. We look at photographs and information from that time. We also look at the role of the British Rothschilds and Jews in this war.

%d bloggers like this:
Skip to toolbar