A new planet has been discovered by a Johns Hopkins University study, with unique characteristics such as burning temperatures, glass rain, and a rotten egg smell.
Researchers were researching planet HD 189733 b, a Jupiter-sized gas giant 64 light-years away, when they discovered signs of hydrogen sulfide in its atmosphere.
The chemical has a distinct rotten egg odor. Its existence may provide information regarding sulfur's role in gas giants outside our solar system.
HD 189733 b is the closest "hot Jupiter"-type planet scientists can view transiting in front of its star, making it helpful in studying planetary atmospheres.
The planet orbits its star in two Earth days and is around 13 times closer than Mercury. It is renowned for its extreme weather, with blistering heat and 5,000 mph winds that rain glass from the sky.
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Discoveries on Young Planets
More and more things are being discovered for newly-found planets. Most recently, a new landmark research undertaken by astrophysicists at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) showed that young planets are not the perfect spheres previously thought by the scientific community.
Contrary to common opinion, these new planets, known as 'protoplanets, ' form from stars with noticeable flatness, resembling oblate spheroids rather than the predicted spherical forms.
The study, which was just approved for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters, questions long-held assumptions about planetary formation.
The team from UCLan's Jeremiah Horrocks Institute for Mathematics, Physics, and Astronomy employed cutting-edge computer simulations to investigate the fascinating issue of planet creation.
The scientists investigated the disk instability hypothesis, which predicted that protoplanets develop swiftly when massive revolving disks of dense gas encircling young stars disintegrate.
New Saturn Discoveries
Researchers have also uncovered a significant seasonal energy imbalance on Saturn, which advances our knowledge of the gas giant planets' weather and climate and long-term development.
Liming Li, a physicist at the University of Houston, stated that this is the first time a gas giant planet, such as Saturn, has displayed "a seasonal global energy imbalance."
According to the experts, the incident presented them with new insights into planet creation and evolution and a new viewpoint on planetary and atmospheric research.
Planets in the Solar System absorb energy from the sun's intense light but lose it as heat radiation. Saturn, along with other gas giants, have internal sources of energy that influence their surroundings.
Xinyue Wang, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Houston, analyzed Cassini satellite data on Saturn's brightness and determined that Saturn's energy absorption and emission might vary by up to 16%.
These fluctuations correlate to the planet's seasons and eccentric orbit, leading to a nearly 20% difference in the Sun's distance.
According to reports, Saturn is the second-massive planet in the solar system's orbit, with a mass 95 times larger than Earth and a volume of more than 760 Earths. Despite its size, it is largely composed of hydrogen-helium gas and is the only planet less dense than water in the solar system.
