Astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to study the atmosphere of the exoplanet WASP-166 b. They were able to detect water and carbon dioxide.
WASP-166 b is classified as a hot super-Neptune. It is about seven times larger and 32 times more massive than Earth. The exoplanet orbits a star of spectral class F, which is located 370 light-years away from Earth. It is 20% larger and more massive than the Sun, with an estimated age of 2.1 billion years.
WASP-166 b’s orbit lies at a distance of 0.067 a. e. (10 million km) from the star in the so-called Hot Neptune Desert: a region near the star where exoplanets of this type are rarely found. Some researchers attribute this to the fact that the powerful radiation flux is gradually blowing away their gas shell.
A team of astronomers from San Francisco State University decided to perform a detailed characterization of the atmosphere of WASP-166 b. To do this, they used the NIRISS near-infrared spectrograph and the NIRCam near-infrared camera mounted on JWST.
The observations showed that the atmosphere of WASP-166 b contains water and carbon dioxide, as they dominate the spectrum obtained. In addition, JWST detected evidence of ammonia and a cloud layer. The rest of WASP-166 b’s atmosphere is thought to be composed of helium and hydrogen. It is heated to a temperature of 1000° C.
Examination of the spectrum of WASP-166 b also revealed that the planetary carbon-to-oxygen ratio of WASP-166 b is approximately 0.282. This is lower than in the host star (0.41) and significantly lower than in the Sun (0.55). The exoplanet was also found to have a high metallicity of atmosphere. Astronomers concluded that the results obtained can be explained by accretion of planetesimals with subsequent erosion of the core or photo-evaporation.
Earlier we told you about how astronomers discovered two hot analogs of Earth in the nearby orange dwarf.
According to Phys.org
