Image (Credit): Exoplanet HIP 65426 b in different bands of infrared light, as seen from the JWST: purple shows the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument’s view at 3.00 micrometers, blue shows the NIRCam instrument’s view at 4.44 micrometers, yellow shows the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) instrument’s view at 11.4 micrometers, and red shows the MIRI instrument’s view at 15.5 micrometers. These images look different because of the ways the different Webb instruments capture light. A set of masks within each instrument, called a coronagraph, blocks out the host star’s light so that the planet can be seen. The small white star in each image marks the location of the host star HIP 65426, which has been subtracted using the coronagraphs and image processing. The bar shapes in the NIRCam images are artifacts of the telescope’s optics, not objects in the scene. (NASA/ESA/CSA, A Carter (UCSC), the ERS 1386 team, and A. Pagan (STScI))
It was only a matter of time, but even so it was pretty quick. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has taken a direct image of an exoplanet. HIP 65426 b, a gas giant that lies 355 light-years away, is from 15 to 20 million years old and about 6 to 12 times the mass of Jupiter. This gas giant is also about 100 times farther from its host star than Earth is from the Sun, allowing the JWST to see the exoplanet’s light separate from its sun.
This is not the first direct image of an exoplanet. The Hubble Space Telescope has also captured images of exoplanets. For instance, in 2008 an astronomer using Hubble images reported on Fomalhaut b, a Jupiter-mass exoplanet that is about 25 light-years away and approximately 200 million years old. It takes close to 872 years for the exoplanet to orbit its sun. Fomalhaut b will most likely be another target for JWST in the near future.
Image (Credit): Hubble Space Telescope optical image from 2006 showing the belt of dust and debris (bright oval) surrounding the star Fomalhaut and the planet (inset) that orbits the star every 872 years and sculpts the inner edge of the belt. A coronagraph (center) on the Advanced Camera for Surveys blocks out the light of the star, which is 100 million times brighter than the planet. (Paul Kalas/UC Berkeley, NASA, ESA)
Image (Credit): Comparison of exoplanet WASP-39b to Earth and Jupiter. (wasp-planets.net)
Yesterday, the University of Maryland reported that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has detected carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of exoplanet WASP-39b, a gas giant about 700 light-years away. This is the first time carbon dioxide has been detected on a planet outside of our solar system.
Eliza Kempton, an associate professor of astronomy at the University of Maryland, stated:
The reason we hadn’t been able to definitively identify CO2 in the atmosphere of WASP-39 b previously was that we never had a telescope that could produce spectra across the right wavelength range…This discovery shows us that Webb is delivering on its promise of being a transformational facility for astronomical observations.
Natalie Batalha of the University of California at Santa Cruz, who leads the team, added:
Detecting such a clear signal of carbon dioxide on WASP-39 b bodes well for the detection of atmospheres on smaller, terrestrial-sized planets.
Again, the JWST is showing it is worth its weight in gold (see note below) as it peers through the universe and quickly observes things we only speculated about earlier.
Note: In fact, the JWST weights 14,300 lbs here on Earth, or 228,800 ounces. Today, gold costs $1,763.00 per ounce. So if the JWST was made of solid gold, it would cost about $403 million. Given that the JWST actually costed $10 billion to build and launch, in weight it is 25 times more valuable than gold.
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute has devised a fun way to ponder extraterrestrial life elsewhere in the galaxy. The adventure, Exotopia, allows you to follow a fictional exoplanet voyage for 30 days utilizing real SETI scientific data. The specially-crafted narrative includes unique digital art along the way illustrating the adventure. You can learn more about this project via this video and the Exotopia website.
It’s a fun way for the Institute to involve and educate the public. The first voyage in June explored the TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets. The next Exotopia voyagelaunches on September 22, 2022.
Image (Credit): Exotopia ticket for the June 2022 TRAPPIST-1 voyage. (SETIInstitute)
Image (Credit): ALMA telescope image of AS 209 (ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), A. Sierra (U. Chile))
Last week’s news that a young exoplanet has been spotted has generated quite a bit of interest. The discovery was reported in the journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Of course, if you read the abstract of the study itself, you may be confused with all the scientific jargon:
We report the discovery of a circumplanetary disk (CPD) candidate embedded in the circumstellar disk of the T Tauri star AS 209 at a radial distance of about 200 au (on-sky separation of 1.4 from the star at a position angle of 161°), isolated via 13CO J = 2−1 emission. This is the first instance of CPD detection via gaseous emission capable of tracing the overall CPD mass. The CPD is spatially unresolved with a 117 × 82 mas beam and manifests as a point source in 13CO, indicating that its diameter is ≲14 au…
We could not fund the space program if this is what we shared with taxpayers. Fortunately, the accompanying press release was better:
Scientists using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA)— in which the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a partner— to study planet formation have made the first-ever detection of gas in a circumplanetary disk. What’s more, the detection also suggests the presence of a very young exoplanet. The results of the research are published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters…While studying AS 209— a young star located roughly 395 light-years from Earth in the constellation Ophiuchus— scientists observed a blob of emitted light in the middle of an otherwise empty gap in the gas surrounding the star. That led to the detection of the circumplanetary disk surrounding a potential Jupiter-mass planet. Scientists are watching the system closely, both because of the planet’s distance from its star and the star’s age. The exoplanet is located more than 200 astronomical units, or 18.59 billion miles, away from the host star, challenging currently accepted theories of planet formation.And if the host star’s estimated age of just 1.6 million years holds true, this exoplanet could be one of the youngest ever detected. Further study is needed, and scientists hope that upcoming observations with the James Webb Space Telescope will confirm the planet’s presence.
My first point is that communication matters, and we need both the scientists and the communicators if the public is to learn anything about what is being funded.
My second point relates to information found later in the press release about the new planet being 200 astronomical units from its sun. Pluto is only 39 astronomical units away from our Sun, so this is quite a difference. Which makes me wonder about our solar system and its various components. Even the hazy image above is more than we have of our own solar system as we guess about a ninth planet out there somewhere and hypothesize about the Oort Cloud. Should a civilization many light years away focus its best telescopes on our solar system , what could they tell us?
We seem to be explorers looking out over the sea at far-away islands not even understanding the components of the island we stand on. We certainly learn more every day as we pick and probe at the objects around us, yet it is clear that our knowledge of our own home has plenty of gaps. Maybe the solar system images from afar should be seen as weak reflections from our own solar system.
Given that the James Webb Space Telescope has yet to turn its attention to AS 209, we can expect even more surprises related to this distant solar system, and maybe our own.
Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of 25 hot Jupiters captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope that have been analysed by an international team of astronomers, enabling them to answer five open questions important to our understanding of exoplanet atmospheres. (ESA/Hubble, N. Bartmann)
“We are interested in understanding the diversity and atmospheric compositions of planets between the size of Earth and Neptune…“‘Super-Earths’ and ‘mini-Neptunes’ are the most common types of planets in our galaxy. But we only have a few examples of atmospheric measurements from these types of planets.”
-Statement by Johanna Teske, a staff scientist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington who is co-leading a Webb observation team with Natasha Batalha at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Northern California. She was discussing the James Webb Space Telescope’s role to better understand exoplanets. Her comments and more are included in a NASA news article, “Exoplanets: What NASA Will See with the Webb Telescope.”
Our Awesome Universe 