True Blue Color of Giant Gas Planet
- 11 years ago
Astronomers have figured out the true color of an exoplanet that is orbiting another star 63 light years away. This is the first time that scientists have been able to measure the actual color of another planet.
Astronomers have figured out the true color of an exoplanet that is orbiting another star 63 light years away.
This is the first time that scientists have been able to measure the actual color of another planet.
To do this, they measured the amount of light that was reflected off the surface of the planet.
Although it has a similar blue color to earth, it is actually a gas giant planet, and the atmosphere reportedly rains glass silicate.
Atmospheric temperatures on the exoplanet reach up to 18 hundred degrees Fahrenheit and winds can be as fast as 4350 miles per hour.
Tom Evans from the University of Oxford, who is the first author of the paper said: “We saw the brightness of the whole system drop in the blue part of the spectrum when the planet passed behind its star. From this, we can gather that the planet is blue, because the signal remained constant at the other colors we measured.”
Our planet also looks blue, but it is because of the ocean absorbing red and green color wavelengths of light more than the blue ones, which it reflects.
Astronomers have figured out the true color of an exoplanet that is orbiting another star 63 light years away.
This is the first time that scientists have been able to measure the actual color of another planet.
To do this, they measured the amount of light that was reflected off the surface of the planet.
Although it has a similar blue color to earth, it is actually a gas giant planet, and the atmosphere reportedly rains glass silicate.
Atmospheric temperatures on the exoplanet reach up to 18 hundred degrees Fahrenheit and winds can be as fast as 4350 miles per hour.
Tom Evans from the University of Oxford, who is the first author of the paper said: “We saw the brightness of the whole system drop in the blue part of the spectrum when the planet passed behind its star. From this, we can gather that the planet is blue, because the signal remained constant at the other colors we measured.”
Our planet also looks blue, but it is because of the ocean absorbing red and green color wavelengths of light more than the blue ones, which it reflects.