The James Webb Space Telescope has detected, for the first time, tiny crystals of quartz (a mineral composed of silica) in the clouds of an “extremely hot” exoplanet.
Known as WASP-17b, this exoplanet discovered in 2009 is located 1,300 light years from Earth and is seven times larger than Jupiter.
The discovery was made by astronomers using the James Webb Telescope’s mid-infrared instrument, which observed the exoplanet for more than ten hours. According to the study, published in the scientific journal Astrophysical Journal Letters, the crystals detected are around ten nanometers in diameter, that is, one millionth of a centimeter.
“We knew from Hubble’s observations that there must be aerosols – small particles that make up clouds or haze – in the atmosphere of WASP-17 b, but we did not expect that quartz stones would be formed,” said David Grant, a researcher at the University of Bristol. United Kingdom.
Minerals rich in silicon and oxygen make up most of the Earth and Moon, as well as other objects in the solar system, and are quite common throughout the Milky Way. However, until now, these grains found in the atmospheres of exoplanets were made of magnesium and not quartz.
According to scientists, this result opens a new path to understanding how exoplanet clouds form and how they evolve.
Unlike mineral particles found in Earth’s clouds, the quartz crystals now detected do not contain a rocky surface, indicating that they originated in the exoplanet’s own atmosphere.
“WASP-17b is extremely hot – about 1,500 degrees Celsius – and the pressure where quartz crystals form high in the atmosphere is only about one-thousandth of what we experience at the Earth’s surface,” Grant explained. and emphasized: “Under these conditions, solid crystals can form directly from the gas, without first passing through the liquid phase.”
According to NASA, exoplanet WASP-17b is “one of the largest and puffiest exoplanets known” and is made primarily of hydrogen and helium, with small amounts of other gases such as water vapor and carbon dioxide.
Source: TSF
