{"id":385,"date":"2010-12-08T22:22:56","date_gmt":"2010-12-08T22:22:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.cos.ucf.edu\/?p=385"},"modified":"2016-12-21T11:20:09","modified_gmt":"2016-12-21T16:20:09","slug":"research-from-ucf-professor-published-in-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/news\/research-from-ucf-professor-published-in-nature\/","title":{"rendered":"Research from UCF professor published in Nature"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_395\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2010\/12\/today.ucf_.jpeg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-395\" class=\"wp-image-395 size-medium\" title=\"today.ucf\" src=\"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2010\/12\/today.ucf_-300x225.jpeg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-395\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This artist&#8217;s concept shows the searing-hot gas planet WASP-12b (orange orb) and its star. (Photo: NASA\/JPL-Caltech)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A peculiar gas-giant planet orbiting a sun-like star 1200 light-years away is the first carbon-rich world ever observed.<\/p>\n<p>The implications are big for planetary chemistry, because without much oxygen, common rocks throughout the planet would be made of pure carbon, in forms such as diamonds or graphite.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn most planets, oxygen is abundant. It makes rocks such as quartz and gases such as carbon dioxide,\u201d said University of Central Florida professor Joseph Harrington, one of the study\u2019s lead researchers. \u201cWith more carbon than oxygen, you would get rocks of pure carbon, such as diamond or graphite, and lots of methane gas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis planet tells us that there are many other strange worlds out there, beyond even the imaginations of the people doing the science,\u201d added Nikku Madhusudhan of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the lead author of the study, which appears in the Dec. 9 issue of the journal Nature.<\/p>\n<p>Harrington and his team at UCF led the Spitzer observations and data analysis. The UCF team used NASA\u2019s Spitzer Space Telescope to measure the light of the planet, WASP-12b, as it passed behind its star, a so-called secondary eclipse.<\/p>\n<p>Madhusudhan performed the chemical analysis of data from NASA\u2019s Spitzer Space Telescope. By using UCF\u2019s data and other published results at different infrared wavelengths, he compared the infrared behavior of common gases to determine the composition of the planet\u2019s atmosphere. Researchers were surprised to find methane, a trace gas on Earth, because it typically does not exist in the searing-hot temperatures found on this planet.<\/p>\n<p>Carbon is a key building block of life, but could life exist if there is too much carbon? NASA\u2019s recent announcement of a bacterium that thrives in a poisonous arsenic environment is yet another example of life\u2019s incredible adaptability.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wouldn\u2019t discount any cool planet as a possible haven for life, no matter what its chemistry,\u201d Harrington said.<\/p>\n<p>WASP-12b isn\u2019t cool enough for life. It is so close to its star that its \u201cyear\u201d is just 26 hours, and its daytime temperatures of about 4700 degrees Fahrenheit make it the second-hottest planet ever measured. It is also the second-largest known planet, as it is more than 80 percent wider than Jupiter.<\/p>\n<p>The planet was discovered last year by a UK consortium, the Wide Angle Search for Planets. Some of the Spitzer data used by the UCF team were contributed by WASP team member Peter Wheatley of the University of Warwick.<\/p>\n<p>Other authors of the paper are Kevin Stevenson, Sarah Nymeyer, Christopher Campo, Jasmina Blecic, Ryan Hardy, Nate Lust, Christopher Britt and William Bowman of the University of Central Florida; Drake Deming of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.; David Anderson, Coel Hellier and Pierre Maxted of Keele University, United Kingdom; Andrew Collier-Cameron of the University of St. Andrews, United Kingdom; Leslie Hebb of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.; Don Pollacco of Queen\u2019s University, United Kingdom; and Richard West of the University of Leicester, United Kingdom.<\/p>\n<p>NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer mission for NASA\u2019s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, also in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.<\/p>\n<p>Article from <a href=\"http:\/\/today.ucf.edu\/carbon-rich-planet-a-girls-best-friend\/\">UCF TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A peculiar gas-giant planet orbiting a sun-like star 1200 light-years away is the first carbon-rich world ever observed. The implications are big for planetary chemistry, because without much oxygen, common rocks throughout the planet would be made of pure carbon, in forms such as diamonds or graphite. \u201cOn most planets, oxygen is abundant. It makes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[38,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-planetary-sciences"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Research from UCF professor published in Nature - College of Sciences News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/news\/research-from-ucf-professor-published-in-nature\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Research from UCF professor published in Nature - College of Sciences News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A peculiar gas-giant planet orbiting a sun-like star 1200 light-years away is the first carbon-rich world ever observed. 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