Researchers Baffled After Drawing First-Ever 3D Map of Exoplanet’s Atmosphere, Reveals Never-Before-Seen Climate
Every day, astronomers are taking huge leaps when it comes to understanding the universe. Even though analyzing the far limits of the solar system remains a challenge, experts have managed to push their boundaries even further. A recent study in Nature takes an exoplanet as its subject and stuns scientists with its findings.
Researchers in the study created a 3D map of WASP-121b (also known as Tylos), stated the European Southern Observatory. The particular extraterrestrial body lies beyond the solar system, some 900 light-years away in the constellation Puppis. The planet is so close to its host star that a year there is equivalent to 30 Earth hours.
"This planet’s atmosphere behaves in ways that challenge our understanding of how weather works — not just on Earth, but on all planets. It feels like something out of science fiction," added Julia Victoria Seidel, a researcher at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile and lead author of the study. Experts claim that one side of the star which faces the sun is always hot while the other is cold.
For the study, the team utilized data they garnered from four telescope units of the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT). Lights from all the telescopes were converted to a single signal. The team detected powerful winds on the planet carrying elements like iron and titanium. Furthermore, these winds were creating unique weather patterns in Tylos's atmosphere. "The VLT enabled us to probe three different layers of the exoplanet’s atmosphere in one fell swoop," said study co-author Leonardo A. dos Santos, an assistant astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, United States.
Researchers monitored the movements of iron, sodium, and hydrogen and, in turn, were able to identify which kinds of winds were blowing in the deep, middle, and shallow layers of the atmosphere. "It’s the kind of observation that is very challenging to do with space telescopes, highlighting the importance of ground-based observations of exoplanets," Santos added.
After probing into the Tylos' atmosphere, experts unveiled that distinct winds were flowing in different layers of the planet. "What we found was surprising: a jet stream rotates material around the planet’s equator, while a separate flow at lower levels of the atmosphere moves gas from the hot side to the cooler side. This kind of climate has never been seen before on any planet," said Seidel, a researcher at the Lagrange Laboratory, part of the Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, in France. One of the jet streams is spread across half of the planet and moves with such speed that it manages to raise the atmosphere high up in the sky. The most intense hurricanes in the Solar system are incomparable in intensity.
Another study published about the planet using the same data explained the presence of titanium on the planet. This is another breakthrough finding as this element was never detected before by experts in the exoplanet. "It’s truly mind-blowing that we’re able to study details like the chemical makeup and weather patterns of a planet at such a vast distance," says Bibiana Prinoth, a PhD student at Lund University, Sweden, and ESO, who led the companion study and is a co-author of the Nature paper.