ESO Telescope Observes Exoplanet Where It Rains Iron

An exoplanet where it rains iron.
This illustration shows a night-side view of the exoplanet WASP-76b. The ultra-hot giant exoplanet has a day side where temperatures climb above 2400°C, high enough to vaporize metals. Strong winds carry iron vapor to the cooler night side where it condenses into iron droplets. To the left of the image, we see the evening border of the exoplanet, where it transitions from day to night. (Image: M. Kornmesser via ESO)

Researchers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have observed an extreme planet where they suspect it rains iron. The ultra-hot giant exoplanet has a day side where temperatures climb above 2400°C, high enough to vaporize metals.

Strong winds carry iron vapor to the cooler night side where it condenses into iron droplets. David Ehrenreich, a professor at the University of Geneva in Switzerland who led the study, said:

The WASP-76b exoplanet

Professor Ehrenreich led the study, which was published in the journal Nature, of this exotic exoplanet. Known as WASP-76b, it is located some 640 light-years away in the constellation of Pisces.

This strange phenomenon happens because the “iron rain” planet only ever shows one face, its day side, to its parent star, its cooler night side remaining in perpetual darkness. Like the Moon orbiting around Earth, WASP-76b is “tidally locked”: It takes as long to rotate around its axis as it does to go around the star.

On its day side, it receives thousands of times more radiation from its parent star than the Earth does from the Sun. It’s so hot that molecules separate into atoms, and metals like iron evaporate into the atmosphere.

The extreme temperature difference between the day and night sides results in vigorous winds that bring the iron vapor from the ultra-hot day side to the cooler night side, where temperatures decrease to around 1500°C.

Not only does WASP-76b have different day-night temperatures, it also has distinct day-night chemistry, according to the new study. Using the new ESPRESSO instrument on ESO’s VLT in the Chilean Atacama Desert, the astronomers identified for the first time chemical variations on an ultra-hot gas giant planet. They detected a strong signature of iron vapor at the evening border that separates the planet’s day side from its night side. Ehrenreich said:

María Rosa Zapatero Osorio, an astrophysicist at the Centre for Astrobiology in Madrid, Spain, and the chair of the ESPRESSO science team, added:

This result was obtained from the very first science observations done with ESPRESSO, in September 2018, by the scientific consortium that built the instrument: a team from Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, and ESO.

ESPRESSO — the Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanets and Stable Spectroscopic Observations — was originally designed to hunt for Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars. However, it has proven to be much more versatile. Pedro Figueira, ESPRESSO instrument scientist at ESO in Chile, said:

Ehrenreich concluded by saying:

Provided by: ESO [Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.]

Follow us on TwitterFacebook, or Pinterest

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR YOU