Multiple metals – and possible signs of water – found in unique exoplanet

An international team of researchers has identified 'fingerprints' of multiple metals in one of the least dense exoplanets ever found.

The team, from the University of Cambridge and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) in Spain, used the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) to observe WASP-127b, a giant gaseous planet with partly clear skies and strong signatures of metals in its atmosphere. The results have been accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

WASP-127b has a radius 1.4 times larger than Jupiter but has only 20% of its mass. Such a planet has no analogue in our solar system and is rare even within the thousands of exoplanets discovered to date. It takes just over four days to orbit its parent star and its surface temperature is around 1400 K (1127° C).

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Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

This artist's concept depicts a planetary system.

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Artistic simulation of WASP 127b, a rare gaseous planet, orbiting a star.

Scientists from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the University of Cambridge have observed the exoplanet WASP-127b.

The observations reveal the presence of a large concentration of alkali metals in its atmosphere, allowing simultaneous detections of Sodium, Potassium and Lithium, for the first time in an exoplanet.