NASA discovers new planet: What we know about the discovery made by the James Webb Space Telescope
Astronomers have detected evidence of an exoplanet that would be the first to be discovered by the JWST.
Using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have uncovered “compelling evidence” of a planet that would be the lightest ever to be directly imaged outside of our solar system.
If the finding is confirmed, it would also be the first extra-solar planet - or exoplanet - discovered by the $10 billion JWST since it entered service in 2022.
Where is this exoplanet located?
A team of researchers led by Anne-Marie Lagrange, an astrophysicist at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), detected the planet in a solar system some 110 light-years away.
The host star, known as TWA 7 or CE Antliae, is a 6.4-million-year-old red dwarf - a cool, orange-colored, small-sized variety of star. TWA 7 is considerably smaller and younger than our Sun.
How did astronomers detect the exoplanet?
To identify the apparent existence of the planet, which has been dubbed TWA 7 b, scientists used the JWST’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). This is an imaging device designed to pick up extremely distant objects whose light is emitted in the mid-infrared wavelength.
MIRI is equipped with a tool called a coronagraph, which played a crucial role in detecting TWA 7 b, by blocking out the glare created by its star.
“This technique, called high-contrast imaging, enables astronomers to directly detect planets that would otherwise be lost in the overwhelming light from their host star,” NASA said in a press release on Wednesday.
What is TWA 7 b like?
The U.S. space agency says TWA 7 b appears to be a “young, cold” planet with a temperature believed to be around 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
While this is significantly higher than Earth’s average temperature of around 60 degrees Fahrenheit, it is low in cosmic terms. It is about 900 degrees Fahrenheit on our solar system’s warmest planet, Venus, while the hottest known exoplanet, Kelt-9b, is thought to have a temperature of approximately 7,800 degrees Fahrenheit.
TWA 7 b was detected within a disk of debris that surrounds its host star. “Its location aligns with a gap in the disk, hinting at a dynamic interaction between the planet and its surroundings,” NASA said.
“An exciting step forward”
The planet’s mass is understood to be about 30% that of Jupiter - the largest and most massive planet in our solar system - and about the same as that of Saturn.
Although that would mean TWA 7 b is still about 100 times more massive than Earth, it would also make it 10 times lighter than any other exoplanet that has ever previously been directly imaged.
In a press release, the CNRS said: “This result marks a new step in the research and direct imaging of increasingly small exoplanets, which are more similar to the Earth than to the gas giants of the Solar System.”
Such an advancement in astronomers’ ability to detect exoplanets represents “an exciting step forward in our understanding of planetary systems”, added Lagrange’s research colleague, Mathilde Malin of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
The astronomers’ findings were published on Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature.
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