We have assumed that some distant exoplanets would experience glories similar to Earth, but now astronomers have found the first evidence of them. The observations come from the Characterising ExOplanet Satellite (Cheops) as well as observations from other observatories of an exoplanet known as WASP-76b
When light strikes the atmosphere all sorts of interesting things can happen. Water vapor can split sunlight into a rainbow arc of colors, corpuscular rays can stream through gaps in clouds like the light from heaven, and halos and sundogs can appear due to sunlight reflecting off ice crystals. And then there is the glory effect, which can create a colorful almost saint-like halo around objects.
Like rainbows, glories are seen when facing away from the light source. They are often confused with circular rainbows because of their similarity, but glories are a unique effect. Rainbows are caused by the refraction of light through water droplets, while glories are caused by the wave interference of light. Because of this, a glory is most apparent when the water droplets of a cloud or fog are small and uniform in size. The appearance of a glory gives us information about the atmosphere. We have assumed that some distant exoplanets would experience glories similar to Earth, but now astronomers have found the first evidence of them.
The CHEOPS space telescope is providing new information on the mysterious exoplanet WASP-76b. This ultra-hot giant is characterized by an asymmetry between the amount of light observed on its eastern terminator — the fictitious line that separates its night side from its day side — and that observed on its western terminator. This peculiarity is thought to be due to a ‘glory’, a luminous phenomenon similar to a rainbow, which occurs if the light from the star — the ‘sun’ around which the exoplanet orbits — is reflected by clouds made up of a perfectly uniform substance. If this hypothesis is confirmed, this would be the first detection of this phenomenon outside our solar system.
WASP-76b is an ultra-hot giant planet. Orbiting its host star twelve times closer than Mercury orbits our Sun, it receives more than 4,000 times the Sun’s radiation on Earth.
”The exoplanet is ‘inflated’ by the intense radiation from its star.
So, although it is 10% less massive than our cousin Jupiter, it is almost twice as big,” explains Monika Lendl, assistant professor in the Department of Astronomy of the UNIGE Faculty of Science, and co-author of the study
In the case of Earth, the droplets are made out of water, but the nature of these droplets on WASP-76b remains mysterious.
could be iron, as this has already been detected in the planet’s extremely hot atmosphere.
The detection of this phenomenon on WASP-76b is the first of its kind outside our solar system.
Do any exoplanets have an atmosphere?
Many observed exoplanets are surrounded by deep atmospheres like those of the gas and ice giants; the light observed from these planets is strongly influenced by the composition of their atmospheres
There’s more to WASP-76b than molten iron rain
Discovered in 2013, WASP-76b is located just 30 million miles from its parent yellow star, which is around 1.5 times the mass and 1.75 times the width of the sun. This distance is just a 12th of the distance between the sun and Mercury, which is the closest planet to our star
What’s important to keep in mind is the incredible scale of what we’re witnessing,” Matthew Standing, an ESA Research Fellow studying exoplanets, said in the statement. “WASP-76b is several hundred light-years away — an intensely hot gas giant planet where it likely rains molten iron
What does glory mean for WASP-76b?
The glory effect may have a rainbow-like appearance and colorful striped pattern, but it’s actually quite distinct from a literal rainbow
Further proof is needed to say conclusively that this intriguing ‘extra light’ is a rare glory,” Project Scientist for ESA’s upcoming Ariel mission, Theresa Lüftinger, said. “Follow-up observations from the NIRSPEC instrument onboard the James Webb Space Telescope could do just the job. Or ESA’s upcoming Ariel mission could prove its presence. We could even find more gloriously revealing colors shining from other exoplanets.”
The Glory lights — a rainbow-like effect — are the rings of right that are formed under the specific environment of a planet reflecting the clouds likely composed of spherical water droplets that have either lasted for three years or are being replenished.
“There’s a reason no glory has been seen before outside our Solar System – it requires very peculiar conditions,” Olivier Demangeon, who is a team leader and an astronomer at the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences in Portugal, said in a statement, quoted by the Space.com.
Hellish landscape of WASP-76b
WASP-76b, an ultra-hot Jupiter-like planet, has been the subject of intense scrutiny since its discovery in 2013.
The exoplanet is locked in a tight orbit around its host star, with one side permanently facing the scorching heat
Implications for habitability
Confirmation of the glory effect on WASP-76b would indicate the presence of clouds composed of perfectly spherical droplets that have persisted for at least three years or are being continuously replenished. The atmosphere’s temperature would also need to be stable over time for such clouds to exist
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