The brightest exoplanet has been discovered! "It's a planet that shouldn't exist" LTT9779 | Metal | Exoplanet
Paper reporter and intern Su Jiahe from Nanbo
On July 10th, a study published in the Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics revealed the discovery of the brightest exoplanet, known as LTT9779b, which orbits its main star every 19 hours and has reflective metal clouds made of metals such as silicates and titanium. However, this has also puzzled scientists.
According to CNN, collected measurement data shows that LTT9779b reflects 80% of the light from its main star, with temperatures on one side reaching up to 2000 degrees Celsius. But temperatures above 100 degrees Celsius are very difficult for cloud formation, and LTT9779b should not have clouds if the temperature is too high.
"This is indeed a confusing question until we realized that the formation of this cloud should be like condensation in a bathroom after a hot shower," said Vivian Parmentier, co-author of the study and researcher at the French Observatory for the Blue Coast in Nice, in a statement
"To make the bathroom full of steam, you can cool the air until the water vapor condenses, or keep hot water flowing until it forms clouds, because the saturation of water vapor in the air is too high to accommodate more water vapor. Similarly, despite the high temperature of LTT9779b, metal clouds can still form because the atmosphere is too saturated with silicates and metal vapor," Parmentier explained.
Meanwhile, the report points out that the size of LTT9779b is also puzzling. Because such a large and hot planet should usually be far from the star, while LTT9779b is only 0.01679 astronomical units away from its star.
"This is a planet that shouldn't exist," Parmentier said. "Usually, the atmosphere of planets like this is blown away by stars, leaving exposed rocks." Researchers believe that the planet's reflective metal cloud is helping it survive in such impossible places.
The first author of the study, Sergio Hoyer, said in a statement, "The high metal content in the cloud layer of LTT9669b makes the planet and its atmosphere heavy and difficult to blow away."