{"id":557461,"date":"2026-03-24T12:36:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T12:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/557461\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T12:36:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T12:36:20","slug":"scientists-discover-impossible-atmosphere-on-ancient-planet-where-a-year-only-lasts-10-hours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/557461\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists discover ‘impossible’ atmosphere on ancient planet where a year only lasts 10 hours"},"content":{"rendered":"

A team of astronomers have revealed their findings of a planet outside of our Solar System that has an atmosphere \u2013 when scientists previously thought that shouldn\u2019t be possible.<\/p>\n

Carnegie scientists used NASA’s<\/a> James Webb Space Telescope<\/a> and published their findings in The Astrophysical Journal Letters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The rocky planet, dubbed TOI-561 b, only has one similarity to Earth now that it too has an atmosphere, but it\u2019s twice as dense, putting it slightly smaller than the Sun.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also molten hot, and orbits incredibly close to its star.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s this orbit that puts it into a different class than our own.<\/p>\n

When it comes to Earth<\/a>, our orbit takes around 365 days, which is what we mark as a single year.<\/p>\n

However, this planet orbits within only 10.56 hours \u2013 making it over 30 times faster than our planet.<\/p>\n

\"CarnegieCarnegie scientists used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (Getty Stock Images)<\/p>\n

Previously, the volatile planet was believed to be too hot to hold onto a gas atmosphere in space<\/a>, but according to the scientists, this atmosphere appears to be a heat distribution system, making the planet far cooler than once thought.<\/p>\n

“Based on what we know about other systems, astronomers would have predicted that a planet like this is too small and hot to retain its own atmosphere for long after formation,” said Carnegie Science Postdoctoral Fellow Nicole Wallack, the study\u2019s second author. “But our observations suggest it is surrounded by a relatively thick blanket of gas, upending conventional wisdom about ultra-short-period planets.”<\/p>\n

While this puzzled scientists at first, they soon found out that it\u2019s not what they first thought, as it could be made out of lighter material than Earth.<\/p>\n

“It’s not what we call a super-puff – or ‘cotton candy’ planet – but it is less dense than you would expect if it had an Earth-like composition,” said Carnegie Science astronomer Johanna Teske, the lead author of the study.<\/p>\n

\"TOI-561TOI-561 b has an atmosphere (NASA)<\/p>\n

The scientist added that the planet \u2018orbits a very old – twice as old as the Sun – iron-poor star\u2019 in the Milky Way<\/a>\u2019s thick disk region, meaning that the planet very well could have formed in a \u2018very different chemical environment from the planets in our own Solar System.\u2019<\/p>\n

After using the telescope\u2019s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) to measure the temperature of the side of the planet that faces constant daylight, due it to being on the side of the star at all times, the researchers found that it measured nearly 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit less than expected.<\/p>\n

They thought it would be 4,900 degrees Fahrenheit, but tracked 3,200 degrees Fahrenheit, suggesting its heat was being redistributed across the planet.<\/p>\n

Teske went on to call the findings \u2018really exciting\u2019 in terms of opening up the path to answer their list of questions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A team of astronomers have revealed their findings of a planet outside of our Solar System that has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,307,66,306,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-557461","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nasa","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-space","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}