Iron and titanium in the atmosphere of an exoplanet

Exoplanets, planets in other solar systems, can orbit very close to their host stars. When the host star is much hotter than the sun, the exoplanet becomes as hot as a star. The hottest “ultra-hot” planet was discovered last year by American astronomers. Today, an international team led by researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), who collaborated with theoreticians from the University of Bern (UNIBE), Switzerland, discovered the presence of iron and titanium vapours in the atmosphere of this planet. The detection of these heavy metals was made possible by the surface temperature of the planet, which reaches more than 4000 degrees. This discovery is published in the journal Nature.