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Judi Lynn

(162,357 posts)
Sat Nov 18, 2023, 06:53 PM Nov 2023

Nasa's James Webb telescope spots collection of shocking materials on distant planet


Story by Andrew Griffin •
3d
Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope has spotted a “fluffy” planet with an atmosphere made up of a collection of intriguing materials.

The planet has a similar water and cloud cycle to that of our own Earth. But the clouds are made of sand and the clouds are made of silicate.

Other parts of the atmosphere are more like our own and could be an intriguing hint of the telescope’s ability to investigate planets that might be home to distant alien life.

Data gathered using the telescope revealed that WASP-107b - a planet 200 lightyears away that orbits a star in the constellation of Virgo - has a dynamic atmosphere made up of water vapour, sulphur dioxide, and sand clouds.

More:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/nasa-s-james-webb-telescope-spots-collection-of-shocking-materials-on-distant-planet/ar-AA1jYzwh
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Nasa's James Webb telescope spots collection of shocking materials on distant planet (Original Post) Judi Lynn Nov 2023 OP
It's raining sand (on a distant fluffy exoplanet) Judi Lynn Nov 2023 #1
Rainy days and sand days rambler_american Nov 2023 #2
Good one. Permanut Nov 2023 #4
GRRrrroan...... lastlib Nov 2023 #8
Ceti Alpha V?... after keithbvadu2 Nov 2023 #3
Needed an !, rather than a ?, but other than that, u get a Duzy. Volaris Nov 2023 #6
Cool! Demovictory9 Nov 2023 #5
so, when are we going to find life as we know it and dont know it... AllaN01Bear Nov 2023 #7
Some perspective when talking about moniss Nov 2023 #9
They should name this new discovery... Pluvious Nov 2023 #10
It's called WASP central scrutinizer Nov 2023 #11

Judi Lynn

(162,357 posts)
1. It's raining sand (on a distant fluffy exoplanet)
Sat Nov 18, 2023, 06:58 PM
Nov 2023

By Nicholas Gerbis
Published: Friday, November 17, 2023 - 2:16pm

About 200 light years away, a planet with a mass like Neptune, a diameter like Jupiter and an atmosphere like Venus whips backward around its star, eight times closer than Mercury circles our sun, and completes an orbit once every six days.

Scientist using an infrared instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have now peered deep into the “fluffy” exoplanet.

The gas giant, dubbed WASP-107b, holds water, lacks methane and has a warm interior. Its nearby star boils off the planet’s atmosphere and pushes it away, much like the tail of a comet.

But the most striking aspect reported in the journal Nature might be the fog of 800-degree F (425 C) sand that floats suspended and rains down within its atmosphere.

More:
https://kjzz.org/content/1863299/its-raining-sand-distant-fluffy-exoplanet

moniss

(5,586 posts)
9. Some perspective when talking about
Sat Nov 18, 2023, 10:56 PM
Nov 2023

objects, distance and time is good to keep in mind when talking about the things our terrific telescopes like Hubble and Webb are revealing to us. I'm sure the Muskites will be convinced he can get them there in their lifetimes maybe by sling-shotting them around the sun and giving them a boost with his solar battery array on the way past Earth. But our fastest ever spacecraft have been the recent probes to the sun which have achieved speeds of 364,660 miles per hour. Even if we had a manned craft that could do that speed or even if we wanted to send a probe to this new Webb discovery we need to do some math in order to see how relative things are (sorry Albert) to this task.

The distance of this object is stated as 200 light years which is 1.18 quadrillion miles. Our fastest craft would need 3,235,890,966 hours to reach that object. That is 134,828,790 days which means 369,393 years.

I have dropped anything to the right of the decimal point and I didn't account for slight difference in hours per day being slightly less than 24 or for the added days of leap years. It's not needed in order to demonstrate the magnitude of distance, time and speed we are talking about. Now I know nobody is really talking about going there or sending a probe and I know and agree that our discoveries are important about furthering our understanding of how the things in the Universe have and are developing. But then again will it really be so long before Eloon is proposing something along these lines regarding space travel and selling "reservations" for some promised future date of travel to Mars etc.? Maybe this guy is in the Musk bloodline.


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