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Astronomers have discovered the most inhospitable planet ever that rains rocks, with seas of lava 60 miles deep and winds of over 3,000 mph.
The Earth-sized planet has twenty four times the speed of sound with temperatures around 3,000 degrees Celsius on one side, hot enough to vaporize the rock.
But on the other hand, they drop down to minus 200 ° C, cold enough to freeze nitrogen.
The bizarre exoplanet is also home to a vast ocean of magma, more than 60 miles deep.
Called K2-141b, it is about 200 light years away and is one of the “most extreme” ever found.
Studying it means shedding new light on the evolution of the Earth.
Lead author Giang Nguyen, a doctoral student at York University, Toronto, said, “The study is the first to make weather predictions on K2-141b.”
The fiery and hot world has a surface, an ocean and an atmosphere all made up of the same ingredients: rocks. There are seas of molten lava.
The planet featured in the Royal Astronomical Society’s monthly notices was detected two years ago by the Kepler Space Telescope.
Computer simulations have now predicted the time.
The expected inhospitable conditions can permanently change the surface and atmosphere over time.
An analysis of the light patterns shows that two-thirds of K2-141b faces endless daylight. On Earth, both hemispheres receive the sun’s rays equally.
The exoplanet belongs to a subset of rocky planets that orbit very close to their star, the researchers explained.
This proximity keeps it gravitationally locked in place with the same side always facing it, ultimately creating a subtle atmosphere in some areas.
Co-author, Professor Nicolas Cowan, of McGill University, Montreal, said: “Our discovery probably means that the atmosphere extends a little beyond the magma ocean shore, making it easier to observe with telescopes. space “.
Surprisingly, the vaporized atmosphere mimics that of the Earth, with only rocks instead of water.
The extreme heat leads them to suffer precipitation, as if they were water particles.
Just as the water cycle on Earth where it evaporates, rises into the atmosphere, condenses, and falls back as rain, so too do sodium, silicon monoxide and silicon dioxide on K2-141b.
On Earth, the rain flows back into the oceans, where it will evaporate once again and the water cycle will repeat itself.
On K2-141b, the mineral vapor formed by the evaporated rock is swept to the frigid side of the night by the supersonic winds and the rocks “rain” again in an ocean of magma.
The resulting currents ebb towards the warm side of the exoplanet, where the rock evaporates once again.
However, the cycle on K2-141b is not as stable as on Earth, scientists say.
The return flow of the magma ocean to the day side is slow.
As a result, they predict that the mineral composition will change over time, ultimately altering the surface and atmosphere of K2-141b.
Professor Cowan said: “All rocky planets, including Earth, were born as fused worlds but then quickly cooled and solidified. The lava planets give us a rare glimpse at this stage of planetary evolution.”
The next step will be to check whether these predictions are correct, say the scientists. The team now has data from the Spitzer Space Telescope that should give them a first glimpse of the exoplanet’s day and night temperatures.
With the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope in 2021, they will also be able to see if the atmosphere is behaving as expected.
Nguyen added: “Next generation space telescopes like the James Webb will be able to detect it from hundreds of light years away.”
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