Nightside condensation of iron in an ultra-hot giant exoplanet

Understand

Ultra-hot giant exoplanets receive thousands of times Earth's insolation.

• Their high-temperature atmospheres (>2,000 K) are ideal laboratories for studying extreme planetary climates and chemistry.
• Daysides are predicted to be cloud-free, dominated by atomic species and substantially hotter than nightsides.
• Atoms are expected to recombine into molecules over the nightside, resulting in different day-night chemistry.