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Quartz crystals in distant planet’s atmosphere
December 18 , 2023
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- Astronomers detected the evidence of quartz nanocrystals in the high-altitude clouds of the exoplanet WASP-17b.
- WASP-17b is a “hot Jupiter” exoplanet about 1,300 light-years away from our planet.
- The detection is the first time that silica particles have been detected in the atmosphere of an exoplanets.
- Silicates are minerals rich in silicon and oxygen and they make up a bulk of Earth and the Moon’s mass, as well as other rocky objects in the solar system.
- They are extremely common across the galaxy.
- But the silicate grains that were detected so far in the atmospheres of exoplanets and brown dwarfs seemed to be made of magnesium-rich silicates like olivine and pyroxene.
- Quartz is pure silicon dioxide.
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