The international teams
of astronomers have detected helium in the atmosphere of WASP-107b. It is the
first time that this chemical element has been detected in the atmosphere of an
exoplanet.
The astronomers, led by
Jessica Spake, of the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, used
the
Hubble Space Telescope, NASA and ESA, to perform such detection.
Helium is the most
abundant element in the universe after hydrogen. It is also one of the main
components of the planets Jupiter and Saturn in our solar system. However,
until now no helium had been detected in exoplanets, despite having sought it.
Spake's team made the
detection by analyzing the infrared spectrum of the atmosphere of WASP-107b.
Previous detections of exoplanet atmospheres as extensive as this one had been
done by studying the spectrum at wavelengths of the ultraviolet band and that
of visible light; this detection, therefore, demonstrates that exoplanetary
atmospheres like this can also be studied at longer wavelengths.
The artistic activity
of the exoplanet WASP-107b here seen as like as a black ball with its star just
behind.
The measurement of the
atmosphere of an exoplanet is carried out when it passes in front of its star. The greater the
amount of an element present in the atmosphere, the easier the detection is.
WASP-107b is one of the
planets with lower density among all known: although the planet is similar in
size to Jupiter, it only has 12 percent of its mass. The exoplanet is about 200
light-years from Earth and it takes less than six days to turn its star around,
due to how close it is to it.
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