THE PLANET WHERE IT SNOWS SUNSCREEN
The Kepler-13 system is 1730 light years from Earth.
The Hubble Space Telescope has found a planet orbiting one of the system's stars. The planet
Kepler-13Ab is so close to its parent star that it's tidally locked. That means one side of the planet always faces the star, and the other is in permanent darkness. As a really massive planet close to its star, Kepler-13Ab is known as a
hot Jupiter.
On this blistering hot planet it "snows" sunscreen. In case that sounds handy, the sunscreen (titanium oxide) precipitation only happens on the planet's permanent nighttime side, not on the sizzling hot, daytime side, which always faces its host star.
Hubble astronomers suggest that powerful winds carry the titanium oxide gas around to the colder nighttime side, where it condenses into crystalline flakes, forms clouds, and precipitates as snow. Kepler-13Ab's strong surface gravity -- six times greater than Jupiter's -- pulls the titanium oxide snow out of the upper atmosphere and traps it in the lower atmosphere.
[Keith Cowing, SpaceRef]