Exoplanet Cloud Condensation Phase Diagram

Clouds on a hot exoplanet are not water droplets — they are vaporized rock and metal condensing out of the atmosphere. This simulator plots a real pressure–temperature phase diagram for a tidally-locked, irradiated exoplanet atmosphere directly against six condensate species' saturation curves — iron, magnesium silicate, sodium sulfide, potassium chloride, zinc sulfide and water — each crossing marking a cloud deck. As you raise the equilibrium temperature, steepen the adiabatic lapse rate, change the surface gravity, or dial up the atmospheric metallicity, every curve and crossing recomputes live, showing why the hottest gas giants carry deep iron and silicate clouds while only much cooler worlds ever grow a water-cloud deck.