Nature vs. Nurture refers to a longstanding debate among scientists trying to figure out whether human behavior is determined by the environment or simply the result of a person’s genes. Planets and people can have a lot in common, and the atmospheres of a duo of hot jupiter exoplanets is an example of this. These two worlds serve as examples of how nature versus nurture operates when it comes to these two “cousin” exoplanets. In a one-of-a-kind experiment, planet-hunting astronomers used NASA Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to observe the hot jupiter “cousins,” and because these two distant, fiery, gaseous worlds are virtually identical in both size and temperature, circling their nearly identical parent stars at the same distance, astronomers thought their atmospheres would be similar, too. What they found surprised them: one of these related worlds is cloudier than the other, and the difference between these distant worlds is now a delicious mystery waiting to be solved by curious planetary scientists trying to understand why this difference between the two exists. worlds so closely related.
The lead scientists, Dr. Giovanni Bruno of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STSI) in Baltimore, Maryland, explained in a June 5, 2017 STSI Press Release that “What we see when looking at the two atmospheres is that they are not the same. One planet, WASP-67b, is cloudier than the other, HAT-P-38b. We don’t see what we see.” is waiting, and we need to understand why we found this difference.
Planetary scientists used HST Wide Field Camera 3 to observe the spectral fingerprints of the two “cousin” exoplanets, which measure the chemical composition. “The effect that clouds have on the spectral signature of water allows us to measure the amount of clouds in the atmosphere. More clouds mean that the water feature is reduced,” added Dr. Bruno.
“This tells us that there had to be something in their past that is changing the appearance of these planets,” he continued.
From a historical perspective, the search for distant alien worlds, located within star families beyond our own Sun, turned out to be a difficult task. The discovery of the first exoplanets a generation ago clearly represents one of humanity’s greatest achievements. Detecting a giant planet, such as Jupiter, the striped giant of our own Solar System, has been compared to observing the light that jumps from a mosquito flying in front of a 1000-watt streetlight bulb, when the observer is standing. 10 miles. far.
Discovery
the smaller it is exoplanet, the more difficult it is to discover. For example, if an alien astronomer, belonging to a technologically advanced civilization, went hunting for other planets in remote regions of our Milky Way, he would have a hard time finding our little planet. This is because our Earth would seem like just a faint and insignificant speck in the vastness of space. In fact, our planet is very well hidden from nosy alien astronomers because the glare from our Star overwhelms it.
The first detection of an exoplanet occurred in 1988. However, the first confirmed discovery came in 1992, with the detection of some strange and hostile planets circling a dense, city-sized stellar corpse called press. pulsars they are the lingering relics of massive stars that have perished in the terrifying fury of a supernova explosion. This furious, fatal, final blaze of glory marks the catastrophic, violent end of the star that was.
Astronomers detected the first exoplanet orbiting a still “living” star, such as our own Sun, in 1995. However, this landmark discovery left a trail of confusion. The newly discovered alien world, nicknamed 51 Pegasus bit was unlike anything planetary scientists thought could exist. 51 Pin b it’s a hot jupiter–a giant gas world, like our Solar System’s Jupiter, closely hugging its parent star in a fiery orbit that is much closer to its stellar parent than Mercury’s orbit around our Sun. Before the discovery of 51 Pin bmost astronomers thought that gas giant planets could only exist much farther from their stars, comparable to Jupiter’s distance from our Sun. Jupiter lies in the cold outer region of our Solar System.
The original technique used by astronomers back in 1995, the Doppler shift method–favors the discovery of giant planets that revolve around their parent stars in blazing close orbits. Tea Doppler shift The method looks for a small wobble induced in a star by an orbiting planet: the bigger the planet, the bigger the wobble, and the easier it is for planet-hunting astronomers to detect.
As of June 1, 2017, 3,610 exoplanets inhabiting 2,704 planetary systems have been discovered, and 610 multiple planetary systems have also been verified. Since 2004, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Finder (HARPS) 3.6-meter telescope, has detected approximately 100 exoplanets, and since 2009, NASA Kepler space telescope has discovered more than two thousand. kepler it has also detected a few thousand candidate planets, of which only about 11% may turn out to be false positives. Planet-hunting astronomers estimate that about 1 in 5 stars similar to our Sun are orbited by an “Earth-sized” planet located in the living area circling its star. Tea living area of a star is that Goldilocks region where temperatures are not too hot, not too cold, but just right for water to exist in its life-sustaining liquid phase. Where liquid water exists, life can also potentially evolve. If there are 200 billion stars inhabiting our Galaxy, there may be 11 billion potentially habitable Earth-sized worlds in our Milky Way. This already enormous number could be further increased if the planets revolving around the numerous and long-lived red dwarf The stars are included in the estimate. red dwarf Stars are the smallest, coolest, and most abundant true stars in our galaxy. red dwarfs they are even smaller than our tiny Sun, and can potentially stay burning hydrogen main sequence of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram of stellar evolution for trillions of years. For this reason, it is generally thought that there is not (yet) red dwarf relics that inhabit the Cosmos. This is because our Universe is a “mother” of 13.8 billion years, and not red dwarf it has had plenty of time to die since the Big Bang.
The least massive exoplanet discovered so far is Draugr (PSR B1257+12A gold PSR B1257+12B), which weighs only twice the mass of our planet’s Moon. By contrast, the most massive exoplanet known is DENIS-P J082303.11-491201 b, and is about 29 times more massive than Jupiter. However, according to some definitions of planet, this extremely large world is too massive to be a planetand it may be a type of failed star called brown dwarf. brown dwarfs they are relatively small distant worlds that probably form in the same way as their true stellar relatives, but never manage to reach the mass necessary to ignite their nuclear fusion fires. These stellar flops are actually a pretty purple-pink color called magentaand are born as a result of the collapse of a dense bag embedded within the undulating, swirling folds of a cold, giant molecular cloud–as do their more successful stellar relatives.
Some exoplanets stick closely to their parent star in orbits so tight and searing that they only require a few hours to complete a single orbit. However, there are other alien planets that take thousands of years to go around their star. In fact, some exoplanets are so far from their parent star that it is sometimes very difficult for astronomers to determine if they are actually gravitationally bound to it. Almost all of the exoplanets discovered so far are inhabitants of our own Milky Way galaxy, but there have also been detections of a handful of intriguing but as yet unconfirmed extragalactic exoplanets. The closest exoplanet to Earth is called Proxima Centauri bthat circulates Proxima Centaurithe closest star to our Sun. Proxima Centauri b it is “only” 4.2 light-years from Earth.
There is also a large population of so-called rogue planets, who are not in the family of any star at all, but instead wander the wilderness of interstellar space with no parent star to call their own. Alas, these reclusive, reclusive alien worlds were likely once members of a planetary system, but were abruptly dislodged by gravitational tugs from sister worlds, or by gravitational disruption caused when a traveling star passed too close to its own stellar parent. Astronomers tend to consider these rogue worlds separately, especially if they are gas giant planets. If this is the case, these rogue planets are often classified as sub-brown dwarfs. Tea rogue planets that roam our Milky Way can number in the billions.
Nature versus nurture: The Strange Case of the “Cousins” Exoplanet
The two mismatched “cousin” exoplanets, one cloudy and one clear, revolve around their yellow dwarf stars once every 4.5 Earth days. Both exoplanets hug their parent star tightly, much more than Mercury hugs our Sun. Long ago, however, the planets probably migrated inland toward the dazzling fires and searing heat of their stellar parent from the regions further away from where they were born.
One planet may have formed differently from another as a result of a different set of circumstances. “You can say it’s nature versus nurture. Right now, they seem to have the same physical properties. So if their measured composition is defined by their current state, then it should be the same for both planets. But that’s not the case. Instead, it appears that their formation histories may be playing a role,” study co-investigator Dr. Kevin Stevenson explained June 5, 2017, in The STSI press release.
The clouds of this distant duo of Jupiter-like gas giants are not like the clouds we see on Earth. Instead, these very strange clouds are probably alkaline clouds. This means that they are probably made up of molecules like sodium sulfide and potassium chloride. The average temperature on each of these grilled planets is over 1300 degrees Fahrenheit.
The two exoplanets are also tidally locked. This means that they always show the same side in front of their stellar parent. Both worlds have an extremely hot day side and a cooler night side.
The team of astronomers has only just begun to learn what factors are important in making some exoplanets cloudy, in contrast to others that are clear. To gain a better understanding of what the mysterious past of the planets may have been like, scientists will need future observations in order to HST and the next one to be released James Webb Space Telescope.
The team’s results were presented on June 5, 2017, at the 230th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, Texas.