2023-10-20 13:05:00
04:05 PM Friday, October 20, 2023 Researchers said that the mystery of the mysterious signals emanating from the “Planet Hell” located 40 light-years from Earth can finally be solved by the James Webb Space Telescope. A new study suggests that volcanoes on this hellish world periodically open up and release hot gas that forms an atmosphere, which then burns up and leaves the planet bald once more. The planet, which has the scientific name 55 Cancri e, is a rocky world with a mass regarding 8 times our planet, and it was discovered in 2004, according to the Live Science website. The planet is very close to its parent star, less than 2% of the distance between Earth and the sun, which… It makes it fully orbital in just 17 hours. This creates some rather extreme conditions on the planet that defy explanation. Perhaps the most puzzling aspect of this planet, according to a paper in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, is that when 55 Cancri e passes behind its star, no visible light comes from the planet. itself, while other times the planet emits a strong visible light signal. In infrared light, there is always a signal, although this signal varies in strength. Observations of infrared light using the Spitzer Space Telescope indicated that the day side of the planet experienced exceptionally scorching temperatures of more than 2,427 degrees Celsius, While the night side was cooler, but still hellish, with temperatures reaching around 1,127 degrees Celsius. In the new study, the authors hypothesize that the planet’s proximity to its star causes gases to be released, meaning giant volcanoes and thermal vents are opening up, Hot carbon-rich elements are ejected into the atmosphere. But the planet cannot retain this atmosphere for long due to the intense heat, and this gas eventually volatilizes, leaving the planet empty until it starts outgassing once more. Unlike most planets, Hell’s atmosphere is unstable. The outgassing process attempts to increase the volume of the atmosphere, while the intense radiation and solar winds from the star smother it. But these two processes are not balanced, leading to a situation where the planet sometimes has an atmosphere, and other times it does not. Researchers believe that this imbalance in the planet’s atmosphere might explain the strange signals. When a planet is in its atmosphere-free “bald” phase, no visible light comes from the planet’s atmosphere, because there is none to begin with, but the planet’s hot surface emits infrared light. As the atmosphere swells, both visible light and all radiation coming from the surface appear in the transit signal. Although this is just a hypothesis, the James Webb Space Telescope has a way to test it. By measuring the pressure and temperature of a planet’s atmosphere, scientists can determine whether an atmosphere has always been present.
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