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Astronomers create Cloud Atlas for Hot, Jupiter-like Exoplanets

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Predicted cloud altitudes and compositions for a range of temperatures common on hot Jupiter planets. The range, in Kelvin, corresponds to about 800 to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit, or 427 to 1,927 degrees Celsius. (Image by Peter Gao/UC Berkeley)

Giant planets in our solar system and circling other stars have exotic clouds unlike anything on Earth, and the gas giants orbiting close to their stars—so-called hot Jupiters—boast the most extreme.

A team of astronomers from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom have now come up with a model that predicts which of the many types of proposed clouds, from sapphire to smoggy methane haze, to expect on hot Jupiters of different temperatures, up to thousands of degrees Kelvin.

Surprisingly, the most common type of cloud, expecte...

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