{"id":5145,"date":"2024-07-09T15:03:56","date_gmt":"2024-07-09T15:03:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/09\/nearby-exoplanet-stinks-of-rotten-eggs-scientists-discover\/"},"modified":"2024-07-09T15:03:56","modified_gmt":"2024-07-09T15:03:56","slug":"nearby-exoplanet-stinks-of-rotten-eggs-scientists-discover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/09\/nearby-exoplanet-stinks-of-rotten-eggs-scientists-discover\/","title":{"rendered":"Nearby exoplanet stinks of rotten eggs, scientists discover"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

We all have difficult neighbours – even the Earth.<\/p>\n

Now scientists have found that a planet close to our own world stinks of rotten eggs.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The research, from scientists at the Johns Hopkins University in the US<\/strong>, suggests that the atmosphere of the planet HD 189733 b, a Jupiter-sized gas giant, has trace amounts of hydrogen sulphide.<\/p>\n

HD 189733 b is an exoplanet – meaning it is outside our solar system.<\/p>\n

The discovery of hydrogen sulphide on the exoplanet offers scientists new clues about how sulphur, a building block of planets, might influence the insides and atmospheres of exoplanets.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

At only 64 light-years from Earth, HD 189733 b is the nearest “hot Jupiter” astronomers can observe passing in front of its star.<\/p>\n

The planet also has extremely high temperatures of about 927C and is known for vicious weather, including raining glass that blows sideways on winds of 5,000mph.<\/p>\n

Guangwei Fu, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University, said: “Hydrogen sulphide is a major molecule that we didn’t know was there.<\/p>\n

“We predicted it would be, and we know it’s in Jupiter, but we hadn’t really detected it outside the solar system.<\/p>\n

“We’re not looking for life on this planet because it’s way too hot, but finding hydrogen sulphide is a stepping stone for finding this molecule on other planets and gaining more understanding of how different types of planets form.”<\/p>\n

The planet was discovered in 2005, and since then has been important for detailed studies of exoplanetary atmospheres.<\/p>\n

The new data is from the James Webb Space Telescope and was published in the journal Nature. The research also ruled out the presence of methane in HD 189733 b.<\/p>\n

“We had been thinking this planet was too hot to have high concentrations of methane, and now we know that it doesn’t,” Mr Fu said.<\/p>\n

The researchers hope to track sulphur in more exoplanets and determine how high levels of that compound might influence how close they form near their parent stars.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This post appeared first on sky.com<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We all have difficult neighbours – even the Earth. Now scientists have found that a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5146,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}