Scientists from the University of Arizona, in the journal “Nature Astronomy”, described an unusual planetwhich they discovered with the help of the James Webb Space Telescope.
The distant globe is similar in size to Jupiter, but weighs only 1/10 as much as our nearby gas giant. At the same time, the atmosphere on one side of it is significantly different from the one on the right.
– This is the first time when a planet was visible in front of a star during its transit east-west asymmetry – says one of the scientists, Matthew Murphy. – I believe that observations conducted from space have many advantages over ground-based research – he adds.
USA. They discovered a new planet. Its average temperature is 500 degrees Celsius
The asymmetry in question concerns differences in atmospheric parameterssuch as temperature or cloud cover. They concern the eastern and western hemispheres. This is crucial for the climate, dynamic processes occurring in the atmosphere and weather phenomena.
– The obtained images tell us a lot about the gases in the exoplanet's atmosphere, clouds, atmospheric structure, chemistry and how everything changes under the influence of different amounts of sunlight – says prof. Murphy.
The planet (WASP-107b) is always facing the same side towards the star. – We don't have a similar planet in our own solar system. It is unique even among exoplanets – emphasizes the astronomer.
Average temperature is less than 500 degrees Cso it is roughly in the middle between the temperature of the hot planets of the solar system and the hottest exoplanets.
Scientists' discovery. The new planet has an asymmetry
– Typically, our observing techniques don't work so well for these intermediate planets. So we had a lot of fascinating open questions that we can finally start to answer. For example, some of our models told us that a planet like WASP-107b should not have such asymmetry, so we are already learning something new – says Prof. Murphy.
– This is really the first time we have directly seen this type of asymmetry using transmission spectroscopy from space. This method is the main way to study the composition of exoplanet atmospheres. It's really amazing – adds prof. Thomas Beatty, co-author of the discovery.
Scientists are already working on the observational data they have collected to take a closer look at thiswhat happens to the exoplanet, including understanding what causes the asymmetry.
– For almost all exoplanets, we can't even look at them directly, much less know what's happening on one side in relation to the other. For the first time, we are able to gain local insight into what is happening in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, emphasizes Murphy.
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