Astronomers have discovered a planet on which iron rains

The new planet belongs to the class of hot Jupiters - exoplanets with a mass on the order of Jupiter. Such objects

revolve around their stars at a distance of onlyat 0.05 a. e. and introduce noticeable short-period disturbances into the motion of the star. Due to their close location to the star, such objects are most often heated in the range from 730 °C to 1.23 thousand °C, so the existence of life on them is not possible.

Due to the high temperatures, the atomosphere is suchThe exoplanet is made up of rather exotic materials—for example, it contains large amounts of lead, and in the upper layers it rains rubies and sapphires.

By observing the WASP-76 star, astronomers have discoveredanother hot jupiter. The exoplanet makes one revolution around the star in just two partial days and is located about 33 times closer to it than the Earth to the Sun.

The temperature on one side is more than1,5 thousand ° C, and on the other reaches 2,5 thousand ° C. Because of this, a cycle of exchange of metallic iron occurs in the atmosphere and on the surface of the planet, similar to the water cycle on Earth.

“Rains on this planet often occur according toin the evenings, however, at this time it is not drops of water falling, but molten iron. In the morning such precipitation does not occur, which is due to the fact that such iron rains occur only on «cold» the night side of this amazing and extremely hot exoplanet"

David Ehrenreich, lead author of the study

Previously, scientists hypothesized that at nightrains of stones can rain on the side of hot Jupiters - they fall out of the clouds, which are formed as a result of evaporation of minerals from the surface of exoplanets.