By Stephen Beech via SWNS
An out-of-this-world planet where it rains molten glass stinks of rotten eggs, according to new research.
American astronomers sniffed out the pungent atmosphere using the James Webb Space Telescope.
The findings, published in the journal Nature, show that the atmosphere of HD 189733 b, a Jupiter-sized gas giant, has trace amounts of hydrogen sulfide.
The molecule not only gives off a stench but also offers scientists new clues about how sulfur, a building block of planets, might influence the insides and atmospheres of gas worlds beyond the solar system.
Research leader Dr. Guangwei Fu, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said: “Hydrogen sulfide is a major molecule that we didn’t know was there.
“We predicted it would be, and we know it’s in Jupiter, but we hadn’t really detected it outside the solar system.
“We’re not looking for life on this planet because it’s way too hot, but finding hydrogen sulfide is a stepping stone for finding this molecule on other planets and gaining more understanding of how different types of planets form.”
As well as detecting hydrogen sulfide and measuring overall sulfur in HD 189733 b’s atmosphere, Dr. Fu’s team also precisely measured the main sources of the planet’s oxygen and carbon – water, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.
Dr. Fu said: “Sulphur is a vital element for building more complex molecules, and – like carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphate – scientists need to study it more to fully understand how planets are made and what they’re made of.”
Just 64 light-years from Earth, Dr. Fu says HD 189733 b is the nearest “hot Jupiter” astronomers can observe passing in front of its star, making it a “benchmark” planet for detailed studies of exoplanetary atmospheres since its discovery in 2005.
He explained that the planet is about 13 times closer to its star than Mercury is to the sun and takes only about two Earth days to complete an orbit.
It has inferno-like temperatures of 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit (927 Celcius) and is notorious for vicious weather, including raining glass that blows sideways on winds of 5,000mph.
As it did by detecting water, carbon dioxide, methane, and other critical molecules in other exoplanets, the Webb Telescope gives scientists yet another new tool to track hydrogen sulfide and measure sulfur in gas planets outside the solar system.
Dr. Fu said: “Say we study another 100 hot Jupiters and they’re all sulfur enhanced. What does that mean about how they were born and how they form differently compared to our own Jupiter?”
He says the new data also ruled out the presence of methane in HD 189733 b with “unprecedented” precision and infrared wavelength observations from the Webb telescope, countering previous claims about that molecule’s abundance in the atmosphere.
Dr. Fu said: “We had been thinking this planet was too hot to have high concentrations of methane, and now we know that it doesn’t.”
The researchers also measured levels of heavy metals like those on Jupiter, a finding that could help scientists answer questions about how a planet’s metallicity correlates to its mass.
Dr. Fu explained that less-massive giant icy planets, such as Neptune and Uranus, contain more metals than those found in gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn, the largest planets in our solar system.
He says the higher metallicities suggest Neptune and Uranus accumulated more ice, rock, and other heavy elements relative to gases like hydrogen and helium during early periods of formation.
Scientists are now testing whether that correlation also holds true for exoplanets.
Dr. Fu said: “This Jupiter-mass planet is very close to Earth and has been very well studied.
“Now we have this new measurement to show that indeed the metal concentrations it has provide a very important anchor point to this study of how a planet’s composition varies with its mass and radius.
“The findings support our understanding of how planets form through creating more solid material after initial core formation and then are naturally enhanced with heavy metals.”
Now Dr. Fu’s team plans to track sulfur in more exoplanets and work out how high levels of that compound might influence how close they form near their parent stars.
He added: “We want to know how these kinds of planets got there, and understanding their atmospheric composition will help us answer that question.”
