An international team found that WASP-96b is a world with a sodium rich atmosphere. The planet, located nearly 1,150 light-years from Earth, orbits its star every 3.4 days. It has about half the mass of Jupiter, and its discovery was announced in 2014.

In June 2022, the Webb Space Telescope captured the distinct signature of water, along with evidence for clouds and haze, in the atmosphere of this hot, puffy gas giant planet, which orbits a distant star.

The observation is the most detailed of its kind to date, demonstrating Webb’s unprecedented ability to analyze atmospheres hundreds of light-years away.

Located in the southern-sky constellation Phoenix, WASP-96b represents a type of gas giant that has no direct analog in our solar system. With a mass less than half that of Jupiter and a diameter 1.2 times greater, WASP-96 b is much puffier than any planet orbiting our Sun. And with a temperature greater than 1000°F, it is significantly hotter. WASP-96 b orbits extremely close to its Sun-like star, just one-ninth of the distance between Mercury and the Sun, completing one circuit every 3½ Earth-days.

PLANET TYPE
Gas Giant
DISCOVERY DATE
2014
MASS
0.48 Jupiters
PLANET RADIUS
1.2 x Jupiter
ORBITAL RADIUS
0.0453 AU
ORBITAL PERIOD
3.4 days
ECCENTRICITY
0.0
DETECTION METHOD