Exoplanets with clouds of rocks & rubies? James Webb Space Telescope will study them all

Astronomers are on the edge of their seats as the James Webb Space Telescope is fully operational now and has opened a gateway to peer into the strangest exoplanets discovered to date. So far, over 5,000 exoplanets have been spotted across the universe out of which some have been confirmed of having clouds made of vapourised rocks and even jewels like rubies and sapphires. With the Webb Telescope, astronomers are now hoping to examine the varied environments of these wild worlds. 

How would Webb help in studying exoplanets?

Scientists will use the spectrographs to study the exoplanets through the process of spectroscopy. In spectroscopy, light received from different objects (stars and planets in this case) is split into a spectrum like a rainbow. This spectrum is then studied to determine the characteristics of the object including the types of molecules present in an exoplanet's atmosphere.

Talking about some of the targeted worlds with strange clouds, Tiffany Kataria, an exoplanet scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said, "On Earth, a lot of these minerals are jewels. A geologist would study them as rocks on Earth. But they can form clouds on exoplanets. That’s pretty wild". The reason for such characteristics in some exoplanets is a tight orbit around their star, which makes them seethe at extremely high temperatures. In fact, the temperatures are so high that the rocks on the planet get evaporated and rise into the atmosphere. 

"Clouds tell us a lot about the chemistry in the atmosphere,” Kataria said. “It then becomes a question of how the clouds formed, and the formation and evolution of the system as a whole.” Interestingly, astronomers are also hopeful of finding evidence of habitability on a small, rocky world like Earth through a detailed study of exoplanet clouds. 

It is already evident that clouds are important for Earth's climate as they regulate temperature and they could also be a vital component in the atmosphere of a habitable exoplanet. "The more we understand how clouds form in general – as they have on Earth and other solar system planets – the more we understand how clouds evolved in more exotic environments", the astronomer said.