THE STRANGE YELLOW SKIES OF WASP-79B
If you’re looking for an ideal holiday destination, one thing’s for sure: you are not going to be choosing WASP-79b. As curious as this huge, hot exoplanet has proven to be ever since its discovery by Dr Barry Smalley of Keele University, UK, in 2012, anyone deciding to lay on their deckchair and look skywards is going to be in for something of a surprise.
Here on Earth the sky is a glorious blue, and that’s because the white light from the Sun – which is made up of all the colours of the rainbow – enters the atmosphere, bounces off small particles and causes the shorter blue and violet wavelengths to become separated from the longer red, yellow and green. As the violet light is mainly absorbed by the upper atmosphere, it leaves the blue waves to be dispersed.
“This is called Rayleigh scattering, and it’s the primary effect that makes Earth’s sky look blue,” says Kristin Showalter Sotzen of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. “If WASP-79b had Rayleigh scattering, its sky
You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.
Start your free 30 days