This artists idea shows what the exoplanet WASP-17 b might look like. WASP-17 b, likewise called Ditsö̀, is a hot gas giant that orbits its star at a distance of just 0.051 AU (about 4.75 million miles, or one-eighth the range in between Mercury and the Sun), completing one complete circuit in about 3.7 Earth-days. With a volume more than 7 times that of Jupiter and a mass less than half of Jupiter, WASP-17 b is an extremely puffy world.
Flakes of silica “snow” fill the skies of puffy, searing-hot exoplanet WASP-17 b.
Catching a glance of among the most typical and familiar minerals on Earth rarely merits a heading. Quartz is found in beach sands, developing stones, geodes, and gem search the world. Its melted to produce glass, refined for silicon microchips, and used in watches to keep time.
Whats so special about the latest discovery from NASAs James Webb Space Telescope? Think of quartz crystals that appear rather literally out of thin air. A mist of glittering grains so small that 10,000 could fit side-by-side throughout a human hair. Swarms of pointy, glassy nanoparticles racing through the blistering atmosphere of a puffy gas giant exoplanet at thousands of miles per hour.
Webbs distinct ability to determine the extremely subtle impacts of those crystals on starlight– and from a range of more than seven million billion miles, no less– is offering critical info about the composition of exoplanet atmospheres and brand-new insights into their weather condition.
Webb observed the WASP-17 system using MIRIs low-resolution spectrograph for nearly 10 hours, collecting more than 1,275 measurements in the past, throughout, and after the transit.For each wavelength, the amount of light obstructed by the planets environment (white circles) was computed by deducting the amount that made it through the atmosphere from the amount originally emitted by the star.The strong purple line is a best-fit design to the Webb (MIRI), Hubble, and Spitzer data. The spectrum shows a clear function around 8.6 microns, which astronomers think is triggered by silica particles taking in some of the starlight passing through the atmosphere.The rushed yellow line reveals what that part of the transmission spectrum would look like if the clouds in WASP-17 bs atmosphere did not consist of SiO2.This marks the very first time that SiO2 has actually been identified in an exoplanet, and the first time any particular cloud types has been identified in a transiting exoplanet.Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI), David Grant (University of Bristol), Hannah R. Wakeford (University of Bristol), Nikole Lewis (Cornell University).
Webb Space Telescope Detects Tiny Quartz Crystals in Clouds of Hot Gas Giant.
Researchers utilizing NASAs James Webb Space Telescope have actually detected proof for quartz nanocrystals in the high-altitude clouds of WASP-17 b, a hot Jupiter exoplanet 1,300 light-years from Earth. The detection, which was uniquely possible with MIRI (Webbs Mid-Infrared Instrument), marks the first time that silica (SiO2) particles have been found in an exoplanet environment.
” We were delighted!” said David Grant, a scientist at the University of Bristol in the UK and first author on a paper that was published today (October 16) in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. “We understood from Hubble observations that there must be aerosols– small particles making up clouds or haze– in WASP-17 bs environment, however we didnt expect them to be made of quartz.”.
Silicates (minerals abundant in silicon and oxygen) make up the bulk of Earth and the Moon as well as other rocky items in our planetary system, and are extremely typical throughout the galaxy. However the silicate grains formerly identified in the atmospheres of exoplanets and brown overshadows seem made from magnesium-rich silicates like olivine and pyroxene, not quartz alone– which is pure SiO2.
The result from this group, which likewise consists of scientists from NASAs Ames Research Center and NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center, puts a new spin on our understanding of how exoplanet clouds develop and form. “We totally anticipated to see magnesium silicates,” said co-author Hannah Wakeford, also from the University of Bristol. “But what were seeing instead are likely the foundation of those, the small seed particles needed to form the bigger silicate grains we spot in cooler exoplanets and brown overshadows.”.
Detecting Subtle Variations.
With a volume more than 7 times that of Jupiter and a mass less than one-half of Jupiter, WASP-17 b is among the largest and puffiest known exoplanets. This, along with its short orbital duration of just 3.7 Earth-days, makes the planet suitable for transmission spectroscopy: a technique that involves determining the filtering and scattering effects of a planets environment on starlight.
Webb observed the WASP-17 system for almost 10 hours, collecting more than 1,275 brightness measurements of 5- to 12-micron mid-infrared light as the world crossed its star. By subtracting the brightness of specific wavelengths of light that reached the telescope when the planet was in front of the star from those of the star by itself, the group had the ability to calculate the quantity of each wavelength blocked by the planets environment.
What emerged was an unanticipated “bump” at 8.6 microns, a feature that would not be anticipated if the clouds were made from magnesium silicates or other possible high-temperature aerosols like aluminum oxide, however that makes ideal sense if they are made of quartz.
Clouds, winds, and crystals.
While these crystals are most likely comparable fit to the pointy hexagonal prisms found in geodes and gem stores on Earth, every one is only about 10 nanometers throughout– one-millionth of one centimeter.
” Hubble data really played an essential function in constraining the size of these particles,” discussed co-author Nikole Lewis of Cornell University, who leads the Webb Guaranteed Time Observation (GTO) program created to assist construct a three-dimensional view of a hot Jupiter atmosphere. “We understand there is silica from Webbs MIRI data alone, but we required the near-infrared and noticeable observations from Hubble for context, to figure out how large the crystals are.”.
Unlike mineral particles found in clouds on Earth, the quartz crystals identified in the clouds of WASP-17 b are not swept up from a rocky surface. “WASP-17 b is exceptionally hot– around 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit (1,500 degrees Celsius)– and the pressure where the quartz crystals form high in the environment is only about one-thousandth of what we experience on Earths surface area,” discussed Grant.
Understanding what the clouds are made of is essential for understanding the planet as a whole. Hot Jupiters like WASP-17 b are made mostly of hydrogen and helium, with little amounts of other gases like water vapor (H2O) and co2 (CO2). “If we only think about the oxygen that is in these gases, and neglect to consist of all of the oxygen secured in minerals like quartz (SiO2), we will significantly underestimate the total abundance,” discussed Wakeford. “These lovely silica crystals inform us about the inventory of different products and how they all come together to form the environment of this world.”.
Exactly how much quartz there is, and how pervasive the clouds are, is tough to determine. Offered that the world is tidally locked with a really hot day side and cooler night side, it is most likely that the clouds circulate around the world, but vaporize when they reach the hotter day side.
WASP-17 b is among 3 worlds targeted by the JWST Telescope Scientist Teams Deep Reconnaissance of Exoplanet Atmospheres using Multi-instrument Spectroscopy (DREAMS) investigations, which are created to collect a comprehensive set of observations of one representative from each key class of exoplanets: a hot Jupiter, a warm Neptune, and a temperate rocky world. The MIRI observations of hot Jupiter WASP-17 b were made as part of GTO program 1353.
Reference: “JWST-TST DREAMS: Quartz Clouds in the Atmosphere of WASP-17b” by David Grant, Nikole K. Lewis, Hannah R. Wakeford, Natasha E. Batalha, Ana Glidden, Jayesh Goyal, Elijah Mullens, Ryan J. MacDonald, Erin M. May, Sara Seager, Kevin B. Stevenson, Jeff A. Valenti, Channon Visscher, Lili Alderson, Natalie H. Allen, Caleb I. Cañas, Knicole Colón, Mark Clampin, Néstor Espinoza, Amélie Gressier, Jingcheng Huang, Zifan Lin, Douglas Long, Dana R. Louie, Maria Peña-Guerrero, Sukrit Ranjan, Kristin S. Sotzen, Daniel Valentine, Jay Anderson, William O. Balmer, Andrea Bellini, Kielan K. W. Hoch, Jens Kammerer, Mattia Libralato, C. Matt Mountain, Marshall D. Perrin, Laurent Pueyo, Emily Rickman, Isabel Rebollido, Sangmo Tony Sohn, Roeland P. van der Marel and Laura L. Watkins, 16 October 2023, The Astrophysical Journal Letters.DOI: 10.3847/ 2041-8213/ acfc3b.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the worlds premier space science observatory. Webb is fixing mysteries in our planetary system, looking beyond to far-off worlds around other stars, and penetrating the strange structures and origins of our universe and our location in it. Webb is a worldwide program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.
A transmission spectrum of the hot gas giant exoplanet WASP-17 b recorded by MIRI (Webbs Mid-Infrared Instrument) on March 12-13, 2023, reveals the very first evidence for quartz (crystalline silica, SiO2) in the clouds of an exoplanet.The spectrum was made by measuring the change in brightness of 28 wavelength-bands of mid-infrared light as the planet transited its star. Webb observed the WASP-17 system utilizing MIRIs low-resolution spectrograph for nearly 10 hours, collecting more than 1,275 measurements before, during, and after the transit.For each wavelength, the quantity of light blocked by the worlds environment (white circles) was determined by subtracting the quantity that made it through the environment from the quantity originally emitted by the star.The solid purple line is a best-fit model to the Webb (MIRI), Hubble, and Spitzer data. The spectrum reveals a clear feature around 8.6 microns, which astronomers think is triggered by silica particles absorbing some of the starlight passing through the atmosphere.The rushed yellow line shows what that part of the transmission spectrum would look like if the clouds in WASP-17 bs atmosphere did not contain SiO2.This marks the first time that SiO2 has actually been determined in an exoplanet, and the first time any specific cloud types has actually been identified in a transiting exoplanet.Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI), David Grant (University of Bristol), Hannah R. Wakeford (University of Bristol), Nikole Lewis (Cornell University).
“We understood from Hubble observations that there should be aerosols– small particles making up clouds or haze– in WASP-17 bs environment, but we didnt anticipate them to be made of quartz.”.
“WASP-17 b is extremely hot– around 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit (1,500 degrees Celsius)– and the pressure where the quartz crystals form high in the environment is just about one-thousandth of what we experience on Earths surface area,” explained Grant.
