Weird Exoplanets
This is the text version of the interactive 3D documentary. 한국어
All exoplanets › Part 3: Storms and darkness
WASP-104b
A planet that bounces back almost no light
View in 3D · narrated- Distance
- about 470 light-years (about 4,400 trillion km, 470 years at light speed)
- Type
- Hot Jupiter (gas planet)
- Size
- About 1.1 times Jupiter’s width
- Star
- WASP-104
- Year (orbit)
- About 1.8 days
- Temperature
- About 1,200 °C
- Found
- 2014
About 470 light-years, toward Leo
WASP-104b is about 470 light-years away, toward the constellation Leo. It is a gas planet the size of Jupiter, hugging its star and circling it every 1.8 days. It looks like an ordinary hot Jupiter, but its color is something special.
View this scene in 3D →Darker than charcoal
This planet sends back less than 3% of the light that hits it. That’s darker than charcoal. That is why the planet looks black on screen even though starlight is shining on it from the front. The small ball at the top left shows how bright an ordinary object would look in the same light.
Why?It is too hot for reflective clouds to form. Instead, things like sodium and potassium in the air are thought to soak up visible light.
Learn moreA team at Keele University in the UK worked this out in 2018 using data from the Kepler Space Telescope. Their paper was titled “WASP-104b is Darker than Charcoal.” The faint red glow around the edge is an artist’s idea of light given off by the hot air itself.
View this scene in 3D →Sources: Wikipedia: WASP-104b
Distances and facts come from published research and NASA, as noted under each planet. The 3D close-ups are artist’s views based on that research, not photographs. Distances to faraway stars can carry some uncertainty.