NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has enabled astronomers to figure out the color of a planet orbiting another star 63 light-years away. The planet’s color is blue.
Astronomers measured changes in the color of light from the planet before, during, and after a pass behind its star, and saw a small drop in light and a slight change in the light color.
We saw the light becoming less bright in the blue but not in the green or red. Light was missing in the blue but not in the red when it was hidden,“ said research team member Frederic Pont of the University of Exeter in South West England in a statement. ”This means that the object that disappeared was blue.”
The planet, HD 189733b, would, if seen directly, look like a deep blue dot, similar to Earth’s color as seen from space. However, the alien planet has a daytime temperature of nearly 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit and it possibly rains glass, according to astronomers.
“The cobalt blue color comes not from the reflection of a tropical ocean as it does on Earth, but rather a hazy, blow-torched atmosphere containing high clouds laced with silicate particles,” the astronomers explain. “Silicates condensing in the heat could form very small drops of glass that scatter blue light more than red light.”
The planet is one of a strange class of planets called hot Jupiters, which orbit close to their parent stars. Astronomers discovered this planet in 2005.
