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How Rotten Eggs Solved an Exoplanet Mystery


The smell of rotten eggs has solved one of exoplanet science's most persistent mysteries. Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have detected hydrogen sulfide gas in the atmospheres of four massive Jupiter like planets orbiting the star HR 8799, marking the first time this molecule has been identified beyond our Solar System. The discovery settles a long standing debate about whether these enormous worlds are truly planets or failed stars called brown dwarfs because the sulfur had to come from solid matter accreted during planet formation, not gas!

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