Эрдэмтэд шинэ аргачлалын тусламжтайгаар Бархасбадь гаригаас хоёр дахин том хэмжээтэй, хөвөн чихэр шиг нягттай экзопланетын агаар мандлын нарийвчилсан зураглалыг гаргажээ.
Дэлхийгээс 1,300 гэрлийн жилийн зайд орших WASP-17b экзопланет нь одтойгоо тун ойрхон байрладаг тул агаар мандал нь хүчтэй цацрагийн нөлөөгөөр халдаг байна. Энэхүү гариг нь одтойгоо таталцлын хүчээр түгжигдсэн тул нэг тал нь үргэлж од руугаа харж, нөгөө тал нь мөнхийн харанхуйд байдаг аж. “Nature Astronomy” сэтгүүлд аравдугаар сарын 14-нд нийтлэгдсэн судалгаагаар, эрдэмтэд “дамжуулалтын утас” (transmission strings) хэмээх шинэ аргачлалыг ашиглан гаригийн агаар мандлын өдөр ба шөнийн талын температур болон химийн найрлагын ялгааг нарийвчлан тогтоожээ.
Бристолын их сургуулийн судлаач Ханна Уэйкфордын тэмдэглэснээр, гаригуудын агаар мандал нь маш ээдрээтэй бөгөөд эмх замбараагүй шинж чанартай байдаг. Судлаачид гариг эх одныхоо урдуур гарах үеийн гэрлийн өөрчлөлтийг хэмжих замаар агаар мандлын ирмэг дэх өргөгдсөн хэсгүүдийг илрүүлсэн байна. Эдгээр нь үнэт чулуу мэт харагдах агаар мандлын овойлт бөгөөд ялангуяа гаригийн экватор орчимд халуун салхи шөнийн тал руу чиглэхэд агаар мандал тэлснээс үүсдэг гэж үзжээ.
Корнеллийн их сургуулийн судлаач Лили Алдерсоны тайлбарласнаар, энэхүү шинэ арга нь агаар мандлыг тойрог хэлбэрийн жигд бүтэц гэж үзэхээс татгалзаж, гаригийн төвөөс ирмэг хүртэлх зайг цэг бүрт өөр өөрөөр хэмжих боломжийг олгосон юм. Энэхүү судалгааны үр дүн нь онолын тооцоололтой өндөр түвшинд нийцэж байгаа нь гаригуудыг гурван хэмжээст биет гэдгийг бодитоор баталж буй чухал ач холбогдолтой ололт боллоо. Өдгөө NASA-гийн каталогид бүртгэлтэй 6,000 гаруй экзопланетын дунд WASP-17b нь агаар мандлын динамик өөрчлөлтийг судлах шинэ боломжийг нээж байна.
Дэлгэрэнгүйг эх сурвалжаас харах
↓Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted something unusual in the atmosphere of WASP-17b, a giant planet about 1,300 light-years from Earth. Astronomers have identified strange, gemstone-like bulges in its atmosphere.
WASP-17b is a strange planet, even by the standards of distant gas giants. It has about 80% of Jupiter’s mass but is roughly twice as wide, giving it an incredibly low density. That’s why scientists compare its consistency to a marshmallow.
The planet also sits remarkably close to its star, where intense radiation heats its atmosphere. Now, thanks to a new technique called transmission strings, researchers have managed to map its atmospheric shape in greater detail, revealing features that traditional observations couldn’t distinguish.
A Giant Planet Where One Side Never Sees The Sun
A year on WASP-17b lasts fewer than four Earth days. That’s how quickly the planet completes an orbit around its host star, placing it firmly in the category of hot Jupiters. But its short orbit isn’t the only unusual thing about it. WASP-17b is tidally locked, which means the same side always faces its star. One hemisphere is constantly exposed to stellar radiation, while the other remains in permanent darkness.
This creates a major temperature difference between the two sides. Hot gases circulate through the atmosphere, moving between regions with very different conditions. Scientists had already predicted that the planet’s morning and evening boundaries would show noticeable temperature differences. The latest observations have now given them a much clearer picture.
“Planets are temperamental, their atmospheres complex and chaotic,” said Hannah Wakeford of the University of Bristol, in a statement about the discovery.
For researchers, seeing those atmospheric differences emerge from actual telescope data was a particularly exciting moment.
Mysterious ‘Gems’ Discovered Around Earth
Despite the nickname, astronomers haven’t discovered actual gemstones floating above WASP-17b. The structures are bulges in the planet’s atmosphere, giving its outer edge an uneven, almost jewel-studded appearance. The team spotted them using transmission strings, a technique that examines starlight as a planet passes in front of its star.
Normally, astronomers study the light passing through a planet’s atmosphere by averaging measurements around its edge. This works well for identifying atmospheric properties, but it doesn’t capture every difference from one region to another. The new method goes further by measuring how far the atmosphere extends at different points around the planet.
“Rather than assuming your atmosphere is a circle with the same radius all the way around, our technique allows you to pull out different distances from the center to the edge of the planet,” explained Lili Alderson of Cornell University.
The resulting map revealed a ring-like atmosphere with raised sections resembling gemstones. One of these bulges appears near the equator, where hot winds reach the cooler nightside and the atmosphere expands.
Webb Discovers Strange Weather in Deep Space
The findings, published on October 14 in the journal Nature Astronomy, the observations revealed differences in temperature and chemical composition between WASP-17b’s dayside and nightside. What particularly caught the researchers’ attention was how closely these differences matched their theoretical predictions.
“Theory predicts that the morning and the evening sides should have a strong temperature difference, and WASP-17b fits really nicely in that trend – pretty much bang-on what we thought it would be,” Alderson said.
NASA’s exoplanet catalog contains more than 6,000 planets, and WASP-17b now offers the first demonstration of a new approach. The transmission strings technique lets astronomers stop treating an exoplanet’s atmosphere as a uniform ring and examine how its shape changes around the planet. That is a notable development for the study of distant worlds. For Alderson, the most exciting part was seeing the observations line up with theoretical predictions.
“This is proof of concept that planets are, in fact, 3D objects, and that, consistently, as they go around their star, what we predict should be happening is happening. To move beyond computational exercises and see it for real is a different matter,” she said.
Webb’s observations have now revealed how uneven and dynamic the atmosphere of WASP-17b really is.
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