I'm a freelance geologist working mostly in the Eastern Alps. I graduated in 2007 with a project studying how permafrost, that´s frozen soil, is reacting to the more visible recent changes of the alpine environment.
WASP-17 bSilicates—minerals rich in silicon and oxygen—make up the bulk of Earth and the Moon, as well as other rocky objects in our solar system. Magnesium-rich silicates likeare common in meteorites and asteroids and have been detected in dust clouds across the galaxy and in the atmospheres of exoplanets and brown dwarfs. But so far, pure crystalline SiO, a researcher at the University of Bristol and first author of the discovery.
While these crystals are probably similar in shape to the pointy hexagonal prisms found in geodes and gem shops on Earth, each one is only about 10 nanometers across—one-millionth of one centimeter. “WASP-17 b is extremely hot—around 1,500 degrees Celsius —and the pressure where they form high in the atmosphere is only about one-thousandth of what we experience on Earth’s surface,” explained Grant. “In these conditions, solid crystals can form directly from gas, without going through a liquid phase first.”
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