Study: Hotter exoplanet likely to swallow another planet

Abu Dhabi: “The Gulf”

A researcher at the New York University Abu Dhabi Center for Astrophysics, Particles and Planets, Dr. An international team of scientists, including Muhammad Ali Tip, announced a detailed study of the super-hot giant exoplanet WASP-76b (WASP-76b). Published in the scientific journal Nature.

A team led by the University of Montreal used the Gemini-North Observatory telescope’s MAROON-X instrument to monitor eleven chemical elements, including rocky elements in the planet’s atmosphere, whose abundance scientists have yet to determine in the gas giant. The planets in our solar system are like Jupiter and Saturn.

According to Muhammad Ali Tip, who was in charge of the data modeling process: “This study is the first to study the abundance of elements such as nickel, magnesium and chromium within a gas giant planet with high precision. We expected, and we believe that this planet may have swallowed a small planet similar to Mercury in terms of chemical composition.

Wasp-76b orbits its largest star in the constellation Pisces, 634 light-years from Earth. Its proximity to its host star means its surface temperature exceeds 2000 degrees Celsius, a factor of 12. than the distance between Mercury and the Sun. Under these conditions, elements that make up Earth’s rocks, such as magnesium and iron, vaporize and rise into WASP-76b’s upper atmosphere, where they can be detected. Through this study, scientists obtained unprecedented information about the abundant condensing and falling of rocky elements on low-temperature gas planets like Jupiter, far from the line of sight of scientific instruments.

The researchers also discovered that detecting elements in the atmospheres of very hot planets depends heavily on heat. The heat of condensation of any element determines its existence as a gas in the upper layers of the atmosphere, or its condensation as a liquid and its descent to the lower layers. In its gaseous state, this element plays a role in filtering light so scientists can detect it. As for capacitor elements, scientists can’t track them, so they don’t have an effect on their reports, which is why they don’t track other elements like titanium and aluminum.