Roughly 620 light - years from Earth , there is KELT-9b , a phonograph recording exoplanet . This is the hot gas giant exoplanet discovered so far , with a temperature of over 4,000 Kelvin ( 3,750 ° C/6,800 ° farad ) – hot than many stars . Now astronomers have been able to consider its ambiance and have detect iron and titanium .

As account inNature , this discovery is an important first in the study of worlds outside the Solar System . Iron has never been detected in the standard atmosphere of an exoplanet before , although the element is the most abundant transition alloy .

Finding the alloy in the atmosphere was n’t straightforward . Iron is usually highly refractive , so it does n’t leave a potent fingermark in the light we see come from the planet . However , the investigator performed detailed simulations of what an extreme ambiance like this should be like . This gave them confidence that it might be possible   to see Fe in the atmosphere of KELT-9b with current tool .

" The result of these computer simulation show that most of the corpuscle base there should be in atomic word form , because the bond that hold them together are broken by collisions between mote that occur at these extremely high temperatures , " co - author Kevin Heng , a   prof at the University of Bern , tell in astatement .

The team observe the planet as it pop off in front of its star . During this transit , the light from the star is filtered through the major planet ’s ambiance , which astronomers can utilize to wreak out its chemical composition found on the light source . The simulation suggested that smoothing iron vaporisation , if present , would leave a clear-cut touch .

" With the theoretical predictions in hired hand , it was like following a treasure function , " added trail author Jens Hoeijmakers , a research worker at the Universities of Geneva and Bern , " and when we dug deeper into the data , we found even more . " The observation revealed that the satellite also had titanium vapor in its atmosphere .

KELT-9b is an extremist - hot Jupiter , a class of improbably high - temperature gas giant satellite . These object have complex atmosphere , part like stars and partly like major planet , so objects like KELT-9b are unequalled laboratories to analyse the evolution of atmospheres expose to the extreme point of the cosmos .