‘Heaviest Known Element’ Discovered in an Exoplanet

Elements are not only found on our planet Earth. Many of the elements found on Earth can also be found in other parts of space. In fact, many elements in our world are thought to originate from space, and it is accepted that these elements were transported to the Earth by structures such as meteorites.

One of these elements, ‘samarium (Sm)’, which is among the rare elements on Earth, became the subject of a new discovery. Scientists have encountered samarium for the first time on an exoplanet. Samarium is the heaviest element among the known elements.

element found deep in the Earth, in the atmosphere of this planet

Scientists from the National Astronomical Observatory of China came across samarium on the planet MASCARA-4, which is located in a different galaxy about 556 light-years from Earth. The discovery of samarium was the heaviest element discovery ever made on an exoplanet.

Moreover, samarium, which is located in the depths of the Earth and especially in the regions close to its core, was in the atmosphere of the planet MASCARA-4. This was actually a situation related to the structure of MASCARA-4.

MASCARA-4, which exists around a young A-type star, is also known as “ultra-hot Jupiter”. The temperature on the planet, which has a mass of 3.1 times that of Jupiter, is estimated to be very high, such as 1976 degrees Celsius.

So how was this discovery made?

ESPRESSO

The heaviest element discovery ever discovered in an exoplanet was made possible by the European Observatory’s ESPRESSO spectrograph. Examining the data obtained from the observations made on February 13 and March 1, 2020, scientists revealed important details about MASCARA-4.

In addition to samarium, the planet has also seen the presence of the elements titanium and barium. Along with samarium, barium was also seen for the first time on another planet.