The CHEOPS space telescope is providing new information on the mysterious exoplanet WASP-76b. This ultra-hot giant is characterized by an asymmetry between the amount of light observed on its eastern terminator — the fictitious line that separates its night side from its day side — and that observed on its western terminator. This peculiarity is thought to be due to a ‘glory’, a luminous phenomenon similar to a rainbow, which occurs if the light from the star — the ‘sun’ around which the exoplanet orbits — is reflected by clouds made up of a perfectly uniform substance. If this hypothesis is confirmed, this would be the first detection of this phenomenon outside our solar system.
Geigermeter News Magazine