Swedish discovery: Unusual element found on planet - UNIVERSE

The rare earth metal terbium is almost exclusively found in Inner Mongolia. But now Swedish scientists have discovered the element on a planet outside our solar system, about 670 light-years from Earth. 

NASA/JPL-Caltech The exoplanet KELT-9b and its star KELT-9.

Terbium is a very rare element in nature. It was first discovered in 1843 by the Swedish chemist Carl Gustaf Mosander in the Ytterby mine in the Stockholm archipelago. Now the Swedes have done it again - researchers from Lund have discovered the element in the atmosphere around a planet named KELT-9b, the hottest of all exoplanets discovered so far.

In addition, the researchers have invented a new method for analyzing exoplanets, planets outside our solar system, in a way that has never been possible before.

"Finding terbium in an exoplanet's atmosphere is a bit of a sensation," says Nicholas Borsato, a doctoral student in astrophysics at Lund University, in a press release.

Exoplanets are usually discovered when astronomers measure how brightly stars shine. KELT-9b, which orbits a star about 670 light-years from Earth, was discovered in 2016 and has an average temperature of about 4,000 degrees.

The study about the discovery has been published in [Astronomy & Astrophysics] (The Mantis Network III: Expanding the limits of chemical searches within ultra hot-Jupiters. New detections of Ca I, V I, Ti I, Cr I, Ni I, Sr II, Ba II, and Tb II in KELT-9 b”). Researchers from Lund University have collaborated with The University of Tokyo, University of Bern, and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

by TT |

Translated by Riedia AI

April 21, 2023, 6:27 p.m.

Source: Swedish discovery: Unusual element found on planet - Riedia