The more we learn about the extreme conditions present on other planets, the less we should complain about the weather on Earth. Scientists are now providing astonishing information about the exoplanet designated WASP-178b, one where the clouds are composed of vaporized rock, according to the new study published in Nature.
The reason for the peculiar structure of the clouds is that the planet orbits extremely close to its host star, the one named WASP-178. There’s no wonder why the exoplanet is called an ‘ultra-hot Jupiter.’ To get a better idea about how close the planet orbits, you must know that a full orbit lasts for just a bit more than three days on Earth.
The exoplanet is located 1,360 light-years away
Located 1,360 light-years away from Earth, the WASP-178b exoplanet is far enough for us to be sure that we’ll never get there using the current technology of the world.
Silicon monoxide (SiO) has been found for the first time in the atmosphere of an exoplanet after examining the properties of WASP-178b.
David Sing, an astrophysicist from Johns Hopkins University, stated as NASA’s website quotes:
We still don’t have a good understanding of weather in different planetary environments,
When you look at Earth, all our weather predictions are still finely tuned to what we can measure. But when you go to a distant exoplanet, you have limited predictive powers because you haven’t built a general theory about how everything in an atmosphere goes together and responds to extreme conditions.
Weird exoplanets with extreme conditions represent something usual in our Universe, however. There are likely trillions of exoplanets out there in the observable Universe, meaning that we should never worry that astronomers will run out of work to do. Furthermore, it becomes staggering if we try to imagine how many exoplanets there could be in the entire Universe, not just the ‘observable’ part.