An extraordinary phenomenon is illuminating the scientific community: an intense rainbow light, known as “glory”, may have been observed for the first time outside our solar system, precisely in the tumultuous atmosphere of WASP-76 b, an exoplanet located at 637 light years from Earth.
This planet, discovered in 2013 by the Wide Angle Search for Planets (WASP) project, demonstrated extreme characteristics, including a possible rain of vaporized irongiven its proximity to its star which leads one of its faces to reach temperatures around 2,400 degrees Celsius.
In 2020, it was revealed that WASP-76 b is stuck with its star, exposing a one side in permanent day and the other in eternal night. Recent analyzes from several satellites, including ESA’s exoplanet characterization satellite and NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, have shown a “bright spot” at the eastern edge of the planet, where perpetual day and the eternal night.
This light could be a “glory”, a visual phenomenon that manifests itself on Earth with concentric rainbow rings forming a large circle. Earthly glories arise when sunlight passes through tiny holes between water molecules in clouds or fog, bending the light and separating it into its wavelengths.
The conditions for the formation of such events are very particular and include the need for almost perfectly spherical and uniform atmospheric particles. Although the theory about WASP-76 b is based on an extremely weak signal and requires further confirmation, its possible presence opens up fascinating new perspectives on search for similar luminous phenomena in the atmospheres of other exoplanets.
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