images

Winds of rubies and sapphires on Exoplanet HAT-P-7b

by

Ron Miller/Novapix

Reference

a-exo99-31821

Date

2022-02-07

First discovered in 2008, HAT-P-7b is over 1,040 light-years away from us. It is an exoplanet 40 percent larger than Jupiter and 500 times more massive than the Earth– and orbits a star 50 percent more massive, and twice as large, as the sun.
Clouds on the planet could be made of corundum, the mineral which forms rubies and sapphires.