A planet recently discovered by astronomers that is very hot and rains iron every night. Ahh, the dream of every metalhead out there.
Where Can We Spot This Out of This World Planet?
WASP-76b is the name of the planet in question. It is approximately 390 light-years from our little blue Earth, and did we mention that it rains metal at night? Of course, not just that, but also it is an ultra-hot plant. Who cares about temperature when you're too busy admiring the iron falling from the sky at night anyway, right?
How Did They Find Out?
The findings had recently been published in the journal Nature last Wednesday. This study was done in 60 days of WASP-76b by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope located in Chile. Astronomers have gathered and used data by the Echelle Spectrograph for Rocky Exoplanets and Stable Spectroscopic Observations, or put as Espresso. This new toy on the Very Large Telescope was used to study the absorption of light that emits from the ultra-hot planet, and this is where they uncovered the ultra-rare phenomena that it is indeed raining iron.
More News About The Planet Please
Okay, so WASP-76b is only ever showing one side of its face to us here on Earth. Therefore it can be said that it is tidally-locked. The side that is facing its parent star is oozing with radiation and can record temperatures as high as 3800 degrees in Fahrenheit or around 2100 degrees Celsius, which tells us that it is not a good idea to be on the wrong side of that planet. That heat alone vaporizes metals, specifically iron, and the strong gusts of wind carry the evaporated metal all over to the night side of the planet where the temperature of 2700 degrees Fahrenheit, which still would burn you, a human, really fast.
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Where Does the Iron Rain Begin?
The team who studied the phenomenon with the help of Espresso discovered that iron rain starts from day to night starts at an interesting coined line called the "terminator." Interestingly enough as well, from night to day, that line is not emitting the same signal. The team also humorously stated that when the vaporized iron gets to the night side and condenses and would rain down over the surface of WASP-76b, it would be, "The Perfect Stage Show For An Iron Maiden Concert."
David Ehrenreich, an astronomer from the University of Geneva, Switzerland, and who has the first entry in the publication said on a press release. "One could say that this planet gets rainy in the evening, except it rains iron,"
Espresso Not Just a One-Trick Pony
Espresso was first made to detect exoplanets that look like Earth, which also revolves around a star just like our sun. With Espresso discovering the phenomenon at WASP-76b, they realized that it could do so much more and put it into more work and not just focus on one thing but also its original intention as well as study atmospheres of different planets out in our galaxy.
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