Researchers have found an exoplanet with a particularly extreme composition: the surface, the ocean and an atmosphere on K2 – 141 b are all exposed Rock together. They have simulated details of the extreme conditions on the exoplanet on the basis of known data, for example about density, with the help of computer models, explain the researchers at McGill University in Canada. Accordingly, there winds whipping at more than 5000 kilometers per hour over a 100 kilometers deep lava ocean . What is the water cycle on earth is analogous to the exoplanet, only with the basic substances sodium, silicon monoxide and silicon dioxide.

Like the terrestrial water cycle, only different K2 – 141 b was discovered with the NASA Kepler space telescope and orbits its star, which is more than 200 light-years away from us, in just 0, 00716 AE (Astronomical Unit) distance. That is less than one percent of the distance of the earth from the sun and more than 40 times closer than Mercury to the sun. Because K2 – 141 b is so close to its star, it rotates bound. On the side that is always facing the star, temperatures of approximately 3000 degrees Celsius prevail, on the opposite side less than – 200 Centigrade. According to the researchers, who present their work in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, their predictions about the conditions should be confirmed with NASA’s James Webb Telescope.

The temperatures are so high that the rock that makes up the exoplanet not only melts, but evaporates, creating the thin atmosphere that could be observed with telescopes. The gaseous rock is therefore blown by the extreme winds to the night side, where it condenses and from there flows back into the ocean. Unlike on Earth, however, this cycle cannot last forever because the composition of the rock changes over time. The surface and the atmosphere of K2 – 141 b change slowly. With fresh data from NASA’s Spitzer space telescope, they now want to check their predictions, and the James Webb telescope could then determine whether the atmosphere actually behaves like this.

(mho)