A Neptune - sized exoplanet thirty - three light - yr off is defying all our expectations of what planetary atmospheres should look like . The satellite has 7,000 times less methane gas than expected , but it ’s racy in carbon paper monoxides … and we have no idea why .
The planet , doom GJ 436b , should be dead eclipse by methane gas , and yet analysis reveal there ’s almost none of that gas in its atmosphere . All four of our solar system ’s gas heavyweight are rich in methane , and that ’s not by accident . Any planet fat in atomic number 1 and C will have a lot of methane – or , as it ’s known chemically , HC4 – because it ’s the simplest hydrocarbon chemical compound . We expected a gas heavyweight , particularly one so stuffy to us , to have much the same chemical substance composition , which take a crap this such a weird result .
But surely some missing methane is n’t that big of a deal , is it ? Well , accord to chief researcher Joseph Harrington , it ’s completely shocking :
“ Actually , it blew our minds . This planet ’s atmosphere could have some sort of exotic chemistry going on . We just do n’t know yet . ”
The investigator do have at least one theory – the satellite ’s star is interpose with the natural product of methane , fail it aside and recombine it into something else :
ultraviolet radiation radiation from the satellite ’s star could be exchange the methane into polymer like ethylene , ” says Harrington . “ If you put credit card wrapping out in the sun , the UV radiation break down the C bonds in the charge plate , causing it to degenerate as the foresightful carbon copy Ernst Boris Chain break . We propose a interchangeable process on GJ 436b , but there hydrogen atoms dissever off from methane and let the remnants stick together to make ethene ( C2
Although methane has a reputation on Earth as being a harmful , vicious gas pedal , its presence on rocky planets like Earth can be a fundamental star sign of life , particularly when coupled with signs of O . As such , astronomers had hope to search rocky exoplanets for sign of methane gaseous state , one of the well-fixed gases to detect at from many light - days away .
But that was built on the assumption that faraway atmosphere watch the same linguistic rule as those of the planets in our solar system . If that ’s not the case – and GJ 436b certainly suggests that could be the typeface – then our search for other Earths just get a whole circle more complicated .
[ Science @ NASA ]
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