The James Webb Space Telescope has let us peer into the atmosphere of gas giant planet WASP-107b, and it has clouds made of sand and an atmosphere of sulphur dioxide and water vapour
By Chen Ly
15 November 2023
Artist’s impression of fluffy planet WASP-107b and its parent star
LUCA School of Arts, Belgium/ Klaas Verpoest (visuals), Johan Van Looveren (typography). Science: Achrène Dyrek (CEA and Université Paris Cité, France), Michiel Min (SRON, the Netherlands), Leen Decin (KU Leuven, Belgium)/European MIRI EXO GTO team/ ESA/NASA
Huge clouds made of sand soar in the skies of fluffy Jupiter-sized planet WASP-107b, according to data from the James Webb Space Telescope.
In 2017, astronomers discovered this unique planet, about 200 light years away from Earth in the constellation Virgo. With a similar mass to Neptune, but a radius much bigger, closer to that of Jupiter, WASP-107b is much less dense than other giant gas planets, about as dense as cotton candy. This is what makes it look fluffy, says Leen Decin at KU Leuven in Belgium.
“In fact, this fluffy planet has one of the lowest densities we’ve ever seen,” she says. “That allows us to really look very deeply into the atmosphere of that planet.”
Advertisement
Read more
A comet wagged its tail as it flew past the sun
By using the James Webb Space Telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument, Decin and her colleagues have now peered into WASP-107b.
They have found that two of the key components of its atmosphere are sulphur dioxide and water vapour. Sulphur dioxide has previously been detected on hot gas giants with an average temperature of 1200 kelvin (927°C), says Decin, but it was surprising to see it on WASP-107b, which is more like 700K (427°C), thought to be too cold for large amounts of sulphur dioxide to form.