Free Astronomy Magazine January-February 2023

JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2023 he ultra-hot giant exoplanet WASP-76 b orbits the star WASP-76, located some 390 light-years away in the constellation of Pisces. This video takes us on a jour- ney to this system. Observations of WASP-76 b using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) suggest it rains iron on this extreme exoplanet. [ESO/L.Calçada /spaceengine.org ] exoplanet’s atmosphere requires very specialised equipment. The team used the ESPRESSO instrument on ESO’s VLT in Chile to analyse starlight that had been filtered through the atmospheres of WASP- 76 b and WASP-121 b. This made it possible to clearly detect several el- ements in them, including barium. These new results show that we have only scratched the surface of the mysteries of exoplanets. With future instruments such as the high- resolution ArmazoNes high Disper- sion Echelle Spectrograph (ANDES), which will operate on ESO’s upcom- ing Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), astronomers will be able to study the atmospheres of exoplanets large and small, including those of rocky planets similar to Earth, in much greater depth and to gather more clues as to the nature of these strange worlds. !