A "Halo" Of Tiny Quartz Crystals Float In The Upper Reaches Of A Hot Jupiter Some 1,300 Light Years Off In The Night Sky...

It is truly a heady time to be alive, insofar as space science goes.

We now see, from our latest NASA space telescope's golden mirrors, that a hot Jupiter, about a sun nearly 1,300 light years away, out into the cold night skies. . . possesses the same "halo" of tiny iridescent quartz crystals know exist, here on Earth -- a precursor, and emblem, of future rocky planet formation.

[Though it seems most of these are only about 10 nanometers across -- one-millionth of one centimeter (much younger, and thus much smaller than such typical dust here on Earth).] Here's the stuff:

. . .Researchers using NASA’s [latest] space telescope have detected evidence for quartz nanocrystals in the high-altitude clouds of WASP-17 b, a hot Jupiter exoplanet 1,300 light-years from Earth. The detection, which was uniquely possible with MIRI (the Mid-Infrared Instrument), marks the first time that silica (SiO₂) particles have been spotted in an exoplanet atmosphere. . . .

Silicates (minerals rich in silicon and oxygen) make up the bulk of Earth and the Moon as well as other rocky objects in our solar system, and are extremely common across the galaxy. But the silicate grains previously detected in the atmospheres of exoplanets and brown dwarfs appear to be made of magnesium-rich silicates like olivine and pyroxene, not quartz alone – which is pure SiO₂. . . .

With a volume more than seven times that of Jupiter and a mass less than one-half Jupiter, WASP-17 b is one of the largest and puffiest known exoplanets. This, along with its short orbital period of just 3.7 Earth-days, makes the planet ideal for transmission spectroscopy : a technique that involves measuring the filtering and scattering effects of a planet’s atmosphere on starlight.

[We] observed the WASP-17 system for nearly 10 hours. . . [and] what emerged was an unexpected “bump” at 8.6 microns, a feature that would not be expected if the clouds were made of magnesium silicates or other possible high temperature aerosols like aluminum oxide, but which makes perfect sense if they are made of quartz. . . .

Now you know. Onward -- grinning. . . to learn of the origins of the stock and merch exchanges -- and of the original, honorable name. . . Lehman / Loeb, tonight, via our theaters.

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