The Kepler-10 system, located at a distance of 564 light years from us, is one of the most "contrasting" and record planetary families discovered outside the solar system. First, it is home to the first known rocky planet Kepler-10b, whose radius is only 1.5 times larger than that of the Earth.
Secondly, it contains the so-called "mega-Earth" Kepler-10c, which many astronomers consider the largest Earth-like planet today and lovingly call "space Godzilla" because of its mass, density and size - it is about 17 times more land. Astronomers have recently begun to doubt its existence, and many planetary scientists consider Kepler-10b not a "whole" planet, but the core of a "burnt" gas giant.
Paul Rimmer of the University of St Andrews, Scotland and his colleagues have added another highly exotic detail to Kepler-10b's imaginary appearance, trying to figure out how often lightning should occur on Earth-like planets, gas giants and brown dwarfs beyond Solar system.
In a number of studies, Hubble and a number of other telescopes have found clouds in the atmosphere of many hot Jupiters and brown dwarfs discovered in recent years, as well as other weather phenomena and signs of activity on their surfaces. This led scientists to the idea that lightning can occur in these clouds, consisting of droplets of silicon and metal vapors, in much the same way as on Earth.
They tried to find out whether this is so by calculating the likelihood of lightning on such celestial bodies, using data obtained from observing the onset of lightning in volcanic ejections on Earth and in its atmosphere, as well as in the air shells of Venus, Jupiter and Saturn.
The researchers used this data in order to understand how such lightning can be seen on the surface of exoplanets, observing them using telescopes available today. Similar calculations were then tested on the exoplanet HD 189733b, which has a "hellish" atmosphere, whose temperature exceeds three thousand degrees Celsius.
As it turned out, most of all, the frequency of lightning occurrence will be affected by how high the temperature of the planet's surface and how often volcanic eruptions occur on it. For a Kepler-10b-class planet, almost touching the outer shells of its star, the frequency of lightning on its surface will be truly fantastic.
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Every hour, a trillion discharges of electricity will occur on its surface, and virtually the entire planet will be enveloped in a kind of blanket of lightning. This phenomenon, as shown by astronomers' calculations, can be noticed by the presence of sulfur dioxide lines in the Kepler-10b spectrum, which can be done after the launch of the James Webb and TESS telescopes, which have sufficient sensitivity for this.
