Extreme ‘Hot Jupiter’ Exoplanet Close to Earth Rains Down Glass, Stinks Like Rotten Egg

Another Jupiter-sized gas giant with scorching temperatures and glass rain may be the clue that astronomers need to find out whether life exists elsewhere.

Scorchingly Hot Exoplanet

A group of astronomers from France detected a planet orbiting the star HD 189733 on October 5, 2005. The exoplanet was actually discovered by configured transit observation across the face of its host star and has been dubbed HD 189733 b.

Exoplanet HD 189733 b orbits at just 64 light years from Earth, sitting in the constellation Vulpecula. It has a radius and mass of about 1.13 times that of Jupiter.

The Jupiter-like planet orbits extremely close to its home star, about 13 times closer than Mercury circles the Sun. Due to this proximity, it completes one orbit in as little as two days.

The close distance between the exoplanet and its home star also explains its hellish temperature. Its surface gets as scorching as 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit, enough to turn some rocks into magma.

Earlier observations had demonstrated that it probably rains molten glass on HD 189733 b, which would seem to be blown sideways by winds of up to 500 miles (805 kilometers), approximately three times the speed of a Category 5 hurricane on Earth.

Earlier, it was reported that HD 189733b was cobalt blue in color because of the atmosphere attended by a hazy, blow-torched haze that contained laced clouds with glass.

Stench of a Gas Giant

Astronomers have released new insights into the unique alien world in a recent investigation using new data from the James Webb Space Telescope. Their findings are outlined in the paper "Hydrogen sulfide and metal-enriched atmosphere for a Jupiter mass exoplanet."

The team of researchers headed by astrophysicist Guangwei Fu of Johns Hopkins University in Maryland measured oxygen, carbon dioxide, water, and heavy metals in the atmosphere of HD 189733 b. They established that the exoplanet contained hydrogen sulfide, which is a foul-smelling, colorless, poisonous, and inflammable gas similar to the odor of rotten eggs and able to be released by decaying organic matter and volcanoes on Earth.

Scientists had earlier suspected the presence of hydrogen sulfide gas on distant gas giants, as atmospheres on Jupiter and Saturn contain the same compound. However, this gas is rarely detected outside the solar system apart from small traces seen in the Solar System.

According to Fu, the finding of hydrogen sulfide on the hot Jupiter exoplanet will act as a vital stepping stone towards finding this molecule on other planets and will require further understanding of how different kinds of planets form.

The presence of hydrogen sulfide also means that the exoplanet is bearable with the element sulfur, which would form vital building blocks of more complex molecules. Besides, sulfur is a vital element of almost everything that exists in all forms of life on Earth.

Fu further noted that HD 189733 b is highly unlikely to host alien life due to its hellish temperature and weather. However, the fact that it can be found in distant worlds outside the Solar System means that a similar exoplanet might also host some form of alien life.

Over the next few months, Fu and colleagues aim to track sulfur in more exoplanets and work out how high levels of that compound might influence how close they form near parent stars.