The James Webb Space Telescope discovered a Jupiter-sized exoplanet called Wasp-107b where sand falls as rain. The planet is located 200 light years from Earth in the constellation Virgo.
The planet has a similar water and cloud cycle to Earth, but its clouds are made of sand and silicate. The planet is a hot gas giant with a cloud cycle similar to Earth.
The James Webb Space Telescope can see objects that emitted light inside a dusty cloud because the longer wavelengths of infrared light slip past dust more easily.
Wasp-107b is referred to as the ”candy floss” as it is much less dense than other giant gas planets. In a groundbreaking discovery, NASA’s James Webb space telescope has revealed a planet where specks of sand fall as rain, the Guardian reported
WASP-107b is a super-Neptune exoplanet that orbits the star WASP-107. It is located 200 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Virgo. The planet was discovered in 2017 by a team led by D. R. Anderson via the WASP-South.
Here are some facts about WASP-107b:
- It is a Neptune-like exoplanet that orbits a K-type star.
- Its mass is 30.5 Earths.
- It takes 5.7 days to complete one orbit of its star.
- It is 0.055 AU from its star.
- It is one of the lowest density planets known.
- It is about the same size as Jupiter, but has only 12 percent of Jupiter’s mass.
- It has a fluffy atmosphere where astronomers discovered sand clouds.
- The high-altitude clouds were composed of tiny silicate particles, which are the primary ingredient of sand.
- Scientists were able to find helium in the escaping atmosphere of the planet, which was the first detection of this element in the atmosphere of an exoplanet.
- The Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) of the JWST detected two fundamental vibration bands of SO2 in the transmission spectrum of WASP-107b.
WASP-107b has a temperature of 500 °C (932 °F). This makes it one of the hottest known exoplanets. The planet’s atmosphere has evidence for water vapor and a thick high-altitude condensate layer. The clouds, made of small silicate particles, partially obscure the water vapor and sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere.
Other exoplanets with high temperatures include:
- WASP-17b: Around 1,500 degrees Celsius (2,700°F)
- WASP-12b: Approximately 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,210 degrees Celsius)
- WASP-39b: About 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit or 900 degrees Celsius
It would take 200 light-years to get to WASP-107b. WASP-107b orbits its star every 5.7 days, which is eight times closer than Mercury is to the Sun. Because it only transits once every 5.7 days, such events will be rarer for WASP-107b than for typical hot-Jupiter exoplanets, which usually have shorter orbital periods.
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