The longer the hunt for exoplanets has gone on—that is, planetary bodies orbiting other stars—the more interesting the discoveries become. A new exoplanet has just been announced, one that displays evidence of water in its spectral signature.
This means that astronomers may have discovered water in the atmosphere of a searingly hot planetary body that also seems to have a higher concentration of metals than any other such body yet recorded. Answers to questions of how the planet was formed remain shrouded in mystery, but these new discoveries may prove illuminating on that front.
The extra-solar planet (hence, “exoplanet) carries the technical designation of “HD 149026 b,” but it also being called “Smertrios” after the Gaelic god of war. The name means “Provider” or “Purveyor.” Smertrios lies in orbit around a yellow subgiant cataloged as “HD 149026,” which is a mere 247 light years from our own star, the Sun.
The new exoplanet orbits only four million miles from its parent star and completes an orbit in a little less than seventy-two hours. It’s about three-quarters of Jupiter’s diameter, and is currently being categorized as a “hot Saturn,” a class of exoplanets named after our own gas giant, and containing large bodies that orbit very close to their parent star.
Because of Smertrios’s proximity to its parent star, it is permanently tidally locked; it only rotates fast enough for half of it to always face its parent star resulting in permanent day, and the other half to always face out into space, resulting in permanent night. The daytime side of the planet has temperatures in excess of 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit, above to the melting point of steel.
The strangest discovery, though, happened through analysis of data collected in 2005 as it crossed between its parent star and the cameras in the James Webb Space Telescope. The resulting color change revealed the planet to be unusually rich in metals for a gas giant—and also rich in water.
