A rocky exoplanet outside Earth's solar system may have an atmosphere, according to new data collected by NASA researchers.
The exoplanet, known as super-Earth TOI-561b, was discovered in 2020. according to NASA. Scientists have determined that the planet is super-hot, with low density. It is about 1.4 times wider than the Earth and orbits the Sun in about 11 hours. Its parent star is similar in size and temperature to Earth's Sun, but the exoplanet is 40 times closer to this star than Mercury is to the Sun. This is stated in a NASA press release.. Observations indicate that the exoplanet has a global ocean of magma and is surrounded by a thick layer of gas.
The exoplanet's low density surprised and baffled scientists, NASA said. It may have an unusual composition from the planets of Earth's solar system. It may also be surrounded by a thick atmosphere, which would not be expected on an exoplanet with these characteristics. But James Webb Space Telescope helped scientists collect data that showed that an unlikely scenario could occur.
The researchers used the telescope's near-infrared spectrograph to measure the exoplanet's daytime temperature. If the exoplanet had no atmosphere, scientists estimate that its daytime temperature would be about 4,900 degrees Fahrenheit. But the spectrograph found TOI-561b's temperature to be close to 3,200 degrees Fahrenheit, much lower than expected.
An artist's concept shows what the hot super-Earth exoplanet TOI-561 b and its star might look like, based on observations from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and other observatories. / Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralph Crawford (STScI)
According to NASA, simply measuring the temperature of an exoplanet does not confirm the presence of an atmosphere. An ocean of magma can circulate heat, and a thin layer of rock vapor can help cool the planet. But neither of these options likely explains the difference between the temperatures measured and what scientists expected.
“We really need a dense, volatile-rich atmosphere to explain all the observations,” said Anjali Piett, a researcher at England's University of Birmingham and co-author of a study published Thursday detailing the findings.
Piett said the atmosphere would allow gases such as water vapor to absorb some wavelengths of light, preventing the telescope's spectrograph from actually measuring them. The exoplanet may also have bright silicate clouds, which could reflect starlight and cool the atmosphere, Piett said.
Scientists suspect that there may be some form of equilibrium between the exoplanet's atmosphere and its magma ocean, said study co-author Tim Lichtenberg, a researcher at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.
“At the same time as gases escape from the planet to feed the atmosphere, an ocean of magma sucks them back in,” Lichtenberg said. “To explain the observations, this planet must be much richer in volatiles than Earth. It really does look like a wet ball of lava.”
An artist's concept shows what a dense atmosphere might look like above a huge ocean of magma on exoplanet TOI-561 b. / Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralph Crawford (STScI)
Scientists are learning more about TOI-561b by studying a set of data collected by the Webb telescope after it observed the exoplanet for more than 37 hours. The work will involve mapping the exoplanet's temperature and studying what its atmosphere might be made of.
“What's really exciting is that this new data set opens up even more questions than it answers,” said Joanna Teske, lead author of the paper and a postdoctoral fellow at the Carnegie Earth and Planetary Science Laboratory.
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