James Webb Telescope Observes Planet So Extreme It Has Clouds of Rock and Coldest Night – Teach Me About Science

The James Webb Space Telescope is one of the scientific and astronomical research tools that is highly appreciated by researchers, as many discoveries have been made thanks to it that have greatly surprised humanity and, of course, the scientific community.

One of these recent discoveries was the discovery of the planet WASP-43b, which surprised astronomers because the climatic conditions faced by this planet are so extreme that the scientific community was amazed.

The planet Wasp-43B It is located 283 light years from Earth, and is known as a hot Jupiter, because its size is similar to this planet in our solar system, with the difference that it orbits its star at a much closer distance than Jupiter does to the Sun.

WASP-43b is a gas giant exoplanet orbiting a K-type star, with a mass 1.78 times that of Jupiter, and was announced in 2011.

This exoplanet is located 2.1 million kilometers from its star WASP-43, compared to the 750 million kilometers that separate Jupiter from the Sun. At this distance, its orbital period is very short, just 19.5 Earth hours. This phenomenon causes winds to blow at speeds of up to 9,000 km/h.

But that’s not all this amazing planet can offer. One of its faces is almost blocked, meaning it always points toward its star. This phenomenon is known as Tidal lock, Causing one side of the planet to always be lit, while the other side is plunged into complete darkness all the time.

For this reason, the temperature of the illuminated side is always 1250 degrees Celsius, capable of melting aluminum, while the night side remains in constant darkness and never receives direct radiation from its star, where the temperature is 600 degrees Celsius.

Another feature of this exoplanet is the strong winds and cyclones that transport heat and vaporized material, such as molten rock, from the light side to the dark side. As a result, the transported material cools and condenses into liquid droplets, creating clouds of molten rock on the planet that can be seen through a telescope, according to a study published in 2019. Astronomy Nature.

Similarly, James Webb discovered that the planet’s atmosphere contains water vapor on the sides, also providing additional information about the thickness of its clouds and the height of its atmosphere.

From the data collected, it was found that WASP-43b does not have methane in its atmosphere, because the light side is too hot for methane to be stable, but it should be detected on the side where it is dark.

Because of the absence of methane, scientists have concluded that the planet has winds of at least 8,000 kilometers per hour, which move the gas from one side to the other, at speeds that there is no time to detect.