New planet named Enaiposha is unlike anything in our solar system

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It started as another exoplanet in a group labeled “ordinary.” No one expected that a world, once thought to be a mini-Neptune, would reveal traits of a super-Venus and change how we see certain planetary types.

Why Enaiposha breaks the mold
Sub-Neptune planets that are smaller than Neptune in size are the most common type of planet known to exist in the Milky Way, but they are absent from the solar system.

They have atmospheres that consist of a variety of gases and atmospheric spectroscopy is used to analyze what gases are present.

Enaiposha differs from a typical sub-neptune in that its upper layers are blanketed by haze and aerosols.

This makes it very difficult to analyze the atmosphere spectroscopically to establish which gases form the atmosphere on the exoplanet.

An air that dims the light
When Enaiposha crossed between its star and Earth, tiny dips occurred at points on the spectrograph where certain gases absorb starlight.

The data hinted at a metal-rich atmosphere with less hydrogen floating around than scientists had expected.

One portion of the team’s work pointed that water vapor was present in the atmosphere, but that alone was not the big story.

Enaiposha and future exploration
Some want to see whether metals in Enaiposha’s air, as a super-Venus, can form droplets or complex clouds. That might explain why so little light passes through its atmosphere.

Others suspect it could be a stepping stone for modeling how thick atmospheres evolve. It might also show that sub-Neptunes can morph into something else with time.

A surprising “super-Venus”
Enaiposha, that also goes by the identifier GJ 1214 b, was first placed in a category that normally describes small, gas-rich worlds. New observations, however, suggest that it is more like Venus but on a bigger scale.

Researchers propose calling it a super-venus because it appears to have a thick atmosphere composed of hydrogen, helium, water, methane and carbon dioxide.

This finding came from recent measurements that showed faint traces of molecules at key parts of the spectrum.