An international squad led past times the astrophysicist Carolina von Essen, has used the OSIRIS spectrograph on the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) to report the chemic composition of a planet whose equilibrium temperature is some 3,200 °C.
![]() |
Artist's impression of ultra hot jupiter [Credit: Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias] |
WASP-33b is real interesting on its own: its temperature is some 3,200 °C, which places it amid the few ultra-hot Jupiter exoplanets known to date. Its orbital menses is every bit curt every bit 29 hours, too its orbit is most perpendicular to the equatorial airplane of the star. Among other collection of peculiarities, its feel of motion is reverse to that of the rotation of the star.
The study, published inward the periodical Astronomy & Astrophysics, analyses the chemic composition of its atmosphere. This is of import because "The electrical current models of exoplanetary atmospheres predict that the ultra-hot Jupiters should live on gratis of clouds, too introduce a attain of oxides inward the visible spectrum, such every bit vanadium oxide, titanium oxide, too aluminium oxide," explains Carolina von Essen, of the University of Aarhus (Denmark), the principal investigator of this study. "But at that topographic point is a express issue of exoplanets for which these molecules lead maintain been detected amongst a high significance, which makes us query the models."
H5N1 detailed decision of the chemic composition of ultra-hot Jupiters has the potential to challenge electrical current models of exoplanet atmospheres. There is a closed symbiosis betwixt models too observations, of which this report is a skillful example, every bit it unveils the starting fourth dimension sign of aluminium oxide inward the atmosphere of WASP-33b, every bit theory predicted.
"GTC too OSIRIS sensitivity too performances lead maintain been fundamental to the success of these challenging observations," says Herve Bouy, co-author of this article. "This combination has made of the GTC, inward recent years, a fundamental telescope inward the report of exoplanetary atmospheres," adds Antonio Cabrera Lavers, GTC Head of Science Operations.
The high-precision information collected past times GTC/OSIRIS allowed this squad to build a physically motivated model of the intrinsic variability of the host star. Here, the pulsations of WASP-33 too their aAmplitude changes amongst wavelength were taken into consideration piece determining the chromatic variability of the planetary size.
"Using modern methods for determining the chemic composition of WASP-33b, nosotros unwrap that the characteristic observed inward the transmission spectrum of WASP-33b betwixt 450 too 550 nm tin post away best live on explained past times aluminium oxide inward its atmosphere," says von Essen. The squad has non encountered meaning prove of other molecules, simply a rather high abundance of aluminium oxide. Thus, novel observations from ground-based too space-based instruments volition live on necessary to confirm this detection.
Source: Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias [November 07, 2018]
Sumber http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com
Buat lebih berguna, kongsi: