Study: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/ae9763
A rocky lava planet once thought to be too extreme to have an atmosphere appears to be wrapped in one with a reflective layer of vaporized silicate mineral clouds, the same family of compounds that make up quartz and sand.
University of Waterloo Physics and Astronomy Professor Lisa Dang and collaborators used the James Webb Space Telescope(JWST) to observe the lava planet TOI-561 b for 37 hours, capturing nearly four complete trips of the planet around its star.
The paper, "A Highly Reflective Atmosphere on the Lava World TOI-561 b Revealed by JWST/NIRSpec Phase Curve," was published in The Astronomical Journal.
"We measured how the planet's brightness and heat changed throughout its orbit," says Dang.
"This technique, known as a phase curve, revealed that the planet reflects a significant amount of light from its star, and that heat is being redistributed around the planet instead of only on the sunlit side. Together, these point to the presence of an atmosphere."
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