United Nations international team of astronomers I discovered the brightest planet outside the solar system ever detected so far, According to a study published in the Astronomy and Astrophysics magazine.
the newly baptized LTT9779b was discovered thanks to some images captured by him telescope of the European Space Agency, Cheops, and its size is approximately five times the surface of the Earth,
Located more than 260 light years from Earthin an area that astronomers call “Neptune’s Hot Desert”and in which, according to what they say, planets of that size should not exist, it is about the first exoplanet to match the brightness of none other than Venusthe brightest object in the night sky – with the exception of the Moon – known to date.
Although the temperature from his illuminated face rises up to 2,000 degrees – temperature considered too high for cloud formation -, the LTT977b reflects 80% of the total light from the star around which it orbits in just 19 hours, which indicates the strange presence of the clouds that puzzled the specialists.
“It was really an enigma, since the formation of these clouds occurs in the way that condensation occurs in a bathroom after a hot shower“, explained Vivien Parmentier, researcher at the Côte d’Azur Observatory, in a press release.
“Like the effect of very hot water in a bath, a burning stream of metal and silicate supersaturates the atmosphere of LTT9779b until these strange metallic clouds form”, adds the lead author of the study.
In addition, the scientists were able to determine that these metallic clouds act like a mirror, reflecting light and thus preventing the atmosphere from disintegrating.
“The clouds of this giant and unknown exoplanet act a bit like a shieldas those who protect the spaceships in the old episodes of the series ‘Star Trek'”commented, a AFP, Maximilian Guenther, a Cheops project officer at the European Space Agency (ESA).
“This research marks an important step because it shows how a planet the size of Neptune can survive in such an environment.”, concluded the scientist.
