Yes, probably. New James Webb Space Telescope observations suggest the scorching lava planet TOI-561 b still has a substantial atmosphere, even though astronomers expected its star’s radiation to have stripped it away billions of years ago.
TOI-561 b is a rocky exoplanet about 280 light-years from Earth. Its surface is thought to be an ocean of molten rock, and the same side always faces its star. A team led by Professor Lisa Dang of the University of Waterloo, including Dr. Anjali Piette of the University of Birmingham, watched the planet for 37 hours, covering nearly four orbits. They found it reflects about 75% of the starlight that reaches it, similar to Venus, and that heat is carried from the dayside to the nightside. Both point to an atmosphere. Computer models suggest clouds of silicate minerals may act like a giant sunscreen over the dayside. The gases are still unknown; carbon dioxide or sulfur dioxide are possibilities. The researchers think the magma ocean may keep feeding the atmosphere with new gas. The findings were published in The Astronomical Journal.
Image: Artist’s concept of TOI-561 b. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.