Read more of this story at Slashdot.
James Webb Space Telescope posted a photo:
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope measured the constituents of exoplanet WD 1856 b's atmosphere as it passed in front of its star, finding signs of methane. WD 1856 b orbits a white dwarf star the size of Earth. As a result, the planet blocks more than half of the star’s light. The red bands indicate where bumps in the spectrum show that this planet’s atmosphere contains methane.
Read the full story: science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-studies-how-pla...
Image Credit: Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)
Image Description: Graphic titled “Gas giant exoplanet WD 1856 b, transmission spectrum, NIRSpec PRISM” shows a graph of amount of light blocked by percent on the y-axis and wavelength of light in microns on the x-axis. The y-axis ranges from 55.2% to 56.5% with tick marks every 0.1% and labels at 55.5 and 56.0. The x-axis ranges from 0.5 to 4.0 microns with tick marks every 0.5 microns. A thick purple line outlined with two semi-translucent bands has an inner line that’s darker and an outer line that’s lighter. The purple line is wavy and runs higher, in the top third, until about 3.5 microns, where it drops to 55.2 on the y-axis and 4.0 on the x-axis. Five humps are highlighted by vertical red bars, indicating the presence of methane. White circles representing data points are scattered above and below the purple line. A key shows that the purple line is the best fit model, red highlights methane, and white circles represent data.
James Webb Space Telescope posted a photo:
You’re a spark in the dark 🎶
Billions of years ago, a Sun-like star nearing the end of its life swelled and became a red giant before ejecting its outer layers and leaving behind its core as a white dwarf. The transformation into a red giant should have destroyed any nearby planets, but astronomers found WD 1856 b, a Jupiter-sized exoplanet, orbiting the white dwarf in a tight orbit, every 34 hours at a distance of less than 2 million miles (3 million km). Could this planet actually have survived the death of its star? Or did this planet originate further out and migrate inwards due to gravitational effects of the other stars in this triple star system?
Using Webb, scientists were able to measure the temperature of this planet and show that it is significantly hotter than if the only source of its heat was the white dwarf. So the planet’s heat must be residual from an earlier time. Figuring out how early would help determine whether the heating came from being engulfed by a red giant or whether it occurred during an inward migration. The conclusion is that heating of this planet most likely happened between 3 and 5.5 billion years after the star became a red dwarf. Webb also took a look at the atmosphere of this planet which shows signs of methane.
In approximately five billion years, the Sun will run out of hydrogen fuel in its core and swell up more than 100 times larger than it is now into a red giant star. It will then shed its outer layers and end its life as a white dwarf star. Mercury, Venus, and possibly the Earth will be destroyed by the red giant. However, the fate of the more distant planets, particularly the gas giants, is unclear. Finding and studying planets in orbit around the remnants of Sun-like stars after their death is a means of learning what might happen in our own solar system in the far future.
Read more: science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-studies-how-pla...
Image credit: Artwork: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)
Image description: An orange gas giant planet at left, taking up about one-third of the frame, facing a star, which appears at top right as a far smaller bright dot. The planet has subtle orange cloud bands. The star illuminates the right side of the planet like the crescent of a waxing moon. Both are on the black background of space. The words “artist’s concept” are in the bottom right corner.