‘Cotton Candy’ Exoplanet Gets Even Weirder With Asymmetrical Atmosphere

Amaze Lab

Exoplanets, or planets which reside outside of the Solar System, can be wild and extremely unpredictable places. Now a planet officially named WASP-107b, which is just 200 light-years away, is baffling astronomers with its zany composition.

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00:00Exoplanets or planets which reside outside the solar system can be wild and extremely

00:08unpredictable places.

00:10Now a planet officially named WASP-107b, which is just 200 light years away, is baffling

00:16astronomers with its frankly zany composition.

00:19WASP is huge, roughly 96% the size of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system.

00:24However, it's less than one-tenth as dense, and Jupiter is already made of gas, which

00:29is the least dense form of matter.

00:31Experts have previously said that means it's around the same density as cotton candy.

00:35But it gets even weirder, as WASP has an asymmetrical atmosphere.

00:38A year on this exoplanet only lasts 5.7 days, and because of that close transit, it's

00:43tidally locked, meaning one side is always facing its central star.

00:47And new observations with the James Webb Space Telescope have revealed that not only is one

00:51side hot and the other freezing, but the different sides have entirely different atmospheric

00:56compositions.

00:57Others say that traditional models suggest this shouldn't be the case, but continued

01:00observations seem to confirm it, with the team adding that this could change the way

01:04we identify exoplanets and understand their chemical compositions.

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