Titanium oxide and chemical inhomogeneity in the atmosphere of the exoplanet WASP-189 b
The temperature of an atmosphere decreases with increasing altitude, unless a shortwave absorber that causes a temperature inversion exists. Ozone plays this role in the Earth’s atmosphere. In the atmospheres of highly irradiated exoplanets, the shortwave absorbers are predicted to be titanium oxide (TiO) and vanadium oxide (VO). Detections of TiO and VO have been claimed using both low-, and high