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The gas giant WASP-94A b \u2013 credit, artistic interpretation by Hannah Robbins, released by Johns Hopkins University<\/p>\n The gas giant WASP-94A b \u2013 credit, artistic interpretation by Hannah Robbins, released by Johns Hopkins University<\/p>\n
Welcome to WASP 94A b, where clouds made of rock melt every morning like the June gloom in Southern California.<\/p>\n
Powered by the James Webb Space Telescope, humanity\u2019s study of exoplanets marches on as a team from Johns Hopkins University explored the atmospheres of several \u201cHot Jupiters\u201d out in the Microscopium constellation.<\/p>\n
Inside is WASP-94A, a star located 700 lightyears from Earth that hosts a gas giant planet which orbits it at a closer proximity than Mercury does to our Sun.<\/p>\n
This has created a unique set of planetary conditions that David Sing, a distinguished professor of earth and planetary sciences at Johns Hopkins, was eager to study.<\/p>\n
By isolating the planet\u2019s clouds, Sing and his team were able to more accurately measure the atmosphere and provide one of the clearest pictures to date of the planet\u2019s composition\u2014a significant advance in planetary science that will provide important context and correlations in future research.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been looking at exoplanets for 20 years, and general cloudiness has been a thorn in our side. We\u2019ve known for quite a while that clouds are pervasive on Hot Jupiter planets, which is annoying because it\u2019s like trying to look at the planet through a foggy window,\u201d said<\/a> Sing.<\/p>\n \u201cNot only have we been able to clear the view, but we can finally pin down what the clouds are made out of and how they\u2019re condensing and evaporating as they move around the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n Though long theorized to exist, the first exoplanet was detected in 1991. Since then, their known diversity has increased exponentially.<\/p>\n Humanity has identified an exoplanet almost as big<\/a> as its star, another that orbits two stars<\/a> like Tatooine from\u00a0Star Wars,\u00a0some which don\u2019t rotate<\/a> and have permanent dark and daytime sides, one with the density of a marshmallow<\/a>, and one that\u2019s shaped like a lemon where it rains diamonds.<\/a><\/p>\n To study WASP-94A b, Sing and his team leveraged the James Webb Space Telescope to capture several transits which the planet made in front of its host star.<\/p>\n They took separate measurements of WASP-94A b\u2019s leading edge as it started to cross in front of the star and the trailing edge as the planet completed its transit. At the leading edge, the air flows from the night side of the planet to the day side, effectively making it the morning. Air flows from day to night at the trailing edge, making it the evening.<\/p>\n NEW ASTRONOMY TOOLS: <\/strong>Greatest Spectroscope Ever Built Can Tell What 2,400 Cosmic Objects Are Made of Every 20 Mins.<\/a><\/p>\n Observations revealed that mornings and evenings on WASP-94A b have extremely different weather patterns, with mornings that are riddled with clouds made of magnesium silicate, a common mineral found in rocks, while the evening has clear skies.<\/p>\n The phenomenon may be akin to morning fog burning off on Earth, but on an extreme scale. Clouds would form in the darkness of the planet\u2019s nightside. As they drift into the scorching heat of more than 1,000 degrees on the day side, the chemicals that make up the clouds boil away, and the clouds simply vaporize.<\/p>\n Alternatively, powerful winds might lift clouds high into the sky on the cooler side of the planet and then plunge downward on the hotter dayside, dragging the clouds deep into the planet\u2019s interior.<\/p>\n