{"id":4753,"date":"2025-01-14T15:07:18","date_gmt":"2025-01-14T06:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sci.nao.ac.jp\/main\/?p=4753"},"modified":"2025-01-14T15:07:18","modified_gmt":"2025-01-14T06:07:18","slug":"20250114-en","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sci.nao.ac.jp\/main\/en\/highlights-en\/20250114-en","title":{"rendered":"Diamonds in Exoplanetary Skies? New Insights on Photochemical Hazes of Exoplanetary Atmospheres"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"850\" height=\"478\" src=\"https:\/\/sci.nao.ac.jp\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/image.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4752\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sci.nao.ac.jp\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/image.png 850w, https:\/\/sci.nao.ac.jp\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/image-768x432.png 768w, https:\/\/sci.nao.ac.jp\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/image-300x169.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Figure&nbsp;1\uff1aArtistic image of exoplanets veiled by shiny aerosols. Image Credit: ESA\/Cheops<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It has been suggested that &#8220;haze,&#8221; a substance produced by atmospheric photochemistry, is ubiquitously present in the atmospheres of extrasolar planets (hereafter exoplanets). Haze is also found in the atmospheres of Saturn\u2019s moon Titan and Pluto, and understanding the processes involved in its formation is crucial for studying atmospheric chemistry and planetary climate. Conventionally, haze in exoplanet atmospheres has been thought to consist of \u201cblack\u201d soot-like material because of high temperature environment of exoplanets. However, recent atmospheric observations using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have indicated that haze in several exoplanets may be composed of &#8220;white&#8221; materials, challenging previous assumptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kazumasa Ohno, Project Assistant Professor of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, developed a new theoretical model for haze formation, incorporating the evolution of haze material composition, to investigate what substances constitute exoplanetary haze. The results showed that the previously expected soot-like material barely form in exoplanet atmospheres. Instead, the model suggested that diamonds\u2014a previously unanticipated substance\u2014could form in exoplanetary atmosphere. This outcome is attributed to the high-temperature, hydrogen-rich environments of exoplanetary atmospheres, which closely resemble the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) environments commonly used for synthesizing diamonds under low pressure in engineering applications. Future research can test the proposed hypothesis of whether diamond synthesis indeed occurs through observations of exoplanetary atmospheres as well as laboratory experiments that mimics exoplanetary environments, which will help to unveil the true nature of exoplanetary haze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This research was published as&nbsp;<em>\u201cPhotochemical Hazes in Exoplanetary Skies with Diamonds: Microphysical Modeling of Haze Composition Evolution via Chemical Vapor Deposition\u201d<\/em>&nbsp;in&nbsp;<em>The Astrophysical Journal<\/em>, dated December 12, 2024.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/iopscience.iop.org\/article\/10.3847\/1538-4357\/ad8e67\">https:\/\/iopscience.iop.org\/article\/10.3847\/1538-4357\/ad8e67<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It has been suggested that &#8220;haze,&#8221; a substance produced by atmospheric photochemistry, is ubiquito [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":4752,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"yes","_locale":"en_US","_original_post":"https:\/\/sci.nao.ac.jp\/main\/?p=4751","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-highlights-en","en-US"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sci.nao.ac.jp\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sci.nao.ac.jp\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sci.nao.ac.jp\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sci.nao.ac.jp\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sci.nao.ac.jp\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4753"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sci.nao.ac.jp\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4756,"href":"https:\/\/sci.nao.ac.jp\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4753\/revisions\/4756"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sci.nao.ac.jp\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sci.nao.ac.jp\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sci.nao.ac.jp\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sci.nao.ac.jp\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}