Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have for the first time detected tiny quartz crystals containing silica — a common mineral on Earth — within the atmosphere of a blazing hot exoplanet.

NASA's Webb Telescope has detected quartz in the air of a giant planet 1,300 light-years away. The Orionid meteor shower peaks this weekend. The atmosphere of the hot gas giant planet WASP-17 b, ...

If you could see the clouds on WASP-17b, they might glitter as starlight reflects off the facets of billions of microscopic quartz crystals. As gas giant WASP-17b crossed in front of its star, a team ...

An artist’s impression of the exoplanet WASP-17b, which may contain clouds of quartz in its atmosphere. A massive, gassy planet 1,300 light-years away is so hot, its clouds are made of quartz crystals ...

This is a transmission spectrum of the hot gas giant exoplanet WASP-17 b captured by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s innovative Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) on 12–13 March 2023. It ...

Thousand-mile-per-hour winds are blowing a hail of tiny quartz crystals through the silicate-enhanced, scorching hot atmosphere of a distant gas giant planet called WASP-17b, the James Webb Space ...

Hannah Wakeford is an Associate Professor at the University of Bristol and receives funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee formerly ...

What sights could an exoplanet’s atmosphere create that would mimic Earth’s own visual wonders? This is what a recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters hopes to address as a team of ...

It’s a colorful sight in the sky that may seem both fleeting and incomplete. Chances are you’ve seen what appears to be a sliver of bright color up there near sunrise or sunset. That’s called a sun ...

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