All articles tagged with #samarium
The U.S. defense industry temporarily avoided a rare-earth metal shortage caused by China's export restrictions on samarium, a key component in missile magnets, through a European deal, but is racing to find new sources before the existing stockpile runs out.
China's dominance in the production of samarium, a rare earth metal essential for military magnets, poses a significant threat to the US and its allies' military capabilities due to export controls and lack of alternative sources, exposing vulnerabilities in their defense supply chains.
Scientists have discovered Terbium, an element, in the atmosphere of KELT-9, the galaxy's hottest exoplanet. The exoplanet orbits its distant star about 670 light years from Earth and has an average temperature of 4,000 degrees Celsius. The discovery was made possible thanks to a new method developed by researchers at Lund University in Sweden.
Astronomers have detected the heaviest single element, samarium, in the atmosphere of an ultra-hot Jupiter exoplanet called MASCARA-4. The planet also has rubidium, which is the first time this element has been found in an exoplanet's atmosphere. The team used a spectrograph to measure starlight as the planet passed in front of its host star and hopes for follow-up observations to confirm the presence of these new chemical elements and refine their quantities in the atmosphere.
Chinese astronomers used the ESPRESSO spectrograph to investigate the atmosphere of MASCARA-4b, an ultra-hot Jupiter exoplanet. They detected rubidium and samarium in an exoplanet's atmosphere for the first time, along with ions of titanium and barium. The study also confirmed previous detections of magnesium, calcium, chromium, and iron in the atmosphere of MASCARA-4b. The researchers encourage further atmospheric studies of exoplanets to find other rare elements.