2024-07-26 06:29:00
The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered a planet, identified as a super Jupiter, orbiting a neighboring star with a super orbit, the Associated Press reported, BTA reported.
The planet has about the same diameter as Jupiter, but six times the mass. Its atmosphere is also rich in hydrogen like Jupiter’s.
However, there is a big difference between the two objects – the planet discovered by “James Webb” takes 100, maybe even 250 years to orbit its star.
Scientists have long suspected that a large planet orbits this star 12 light years away, but not as massive or distant from it.
A light year is the distance light travels in one year – 9.5 trillion kilometers.
The new observations show that the planet orbits the star Epsilon Indi A, part of a triple star system.
An international team led by Elisabeth Mathews of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany collected the images last year and has now published the results in the journal Nature.
Astronomers have directly observed the incredibly old and cold gas giant – a rare and difficult feat – by masking the star using a special shadowing device on the James Webb Telescope. Blocking the star’s light, the planet stood out as a dot of infrared light.
The planet and star are 3.5 billion years old — 1 billion years younger than our solar system — but still considered older and brighter than expected, Matthews noted.
The star is so bright and close to our solar system that it is visible to the naked eye in the Southern Hemisphere.
However, there is no chance of life on this planet.
“It’s a gas giant with no solid surface or liquid water oceans,” Matthews said in an email. According to her, it is unlikely that there are more gas giants in this system, but it is possible that small rocky worlds lurk there.
Jupiter-like worlds can help scientists understand how these planets evolve over gigatimes, Matthews added.
The first planets outside our solar system, called exoplanets, were confirmed in the early 1990s. As of mid-July, according to NASA, they numbered 5,690. The majority of them were discovered through the so-called transit method.
Space and ground-based telescopes are on the lookout for more such objects, especially planets that may be Earth-like.
Launched in 2021, the James Webb Telescope is the largest and most powerful astronomical observatory ever launched into space.