Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin This illustration shows HD 189733b, a huge gas giant that orbits very close to its host star HD ...
[+] 189733. NASA, ESA, M. Kornmesser Scientists have used the James Webb Space Telescope to discover a molecule on a much-studied nearby exoplanet that would it the stench of rotten eggs.
An exoplanet is a planet that orbits a star other than our sun. In this case, the Jupiter-sized HD 189733 b, orbits a star that is just 63 light-years distant in the constellation Vulpecula. A previous study using the Hubble Space Telescope revealed HD 189733 b to be a deep azure blue, reminiscent of Earth’s color as seen from space.
It was dubbed the "deep blue dot." It was already known that hydrogen sulfide exists in Jupiter’s atmosphere, but it hasn’t been detected outside the solar system until now. New Clues This discovery of hydrogen sulfide on HD 189733 b gives scientists new clues about how sulfur—known to be a building block of planets—may affect the atmospheres of exoplanets.
The study, published today in Nature , also detected water, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. “Sulfur is a vital element for building more complex molecules, and—like carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphate—scientists need to study it more to fully understand how planets are made and what they’re made of,” said Guangwei Fu, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, who led the research. MORE FOR YOU WWE Raw Re.