NASA’s world’s premier space science observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, discovers exoplanet colder than any other imaged planet beyond our solar system. Astronomers said Epsilon Indi Ab is one of the coldest exoplanets observed to date.
A team of astronomers has used the Webb telescope to capture the Epsilon Indi Ab exoplanet. It is 12 light-years away from Earth. It orbits a K-type star named Epsilon Indi A (Eps Ind A). Epsilon Indi A is cooler than our Sun but is the same age.
Astronomers observed the exoplanet using the coronagraph on Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). Among all discovered exoplanets, only a few have been directly imaged previously by ground-based observatories and space telescopes.
Epsilon Indi Ab characteristics are similar to our solar system’s gas giant, Jupiter. According to astronomers, if any alien telescope like our JWST pointed toward our solar system, Jupiter might look similar to the newly captured Epsilon Indi Ab.
Lead author Elisabeth Matthews of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany said, “This discovery is exciting because the planet is quite similar to Jupiter; it is a little warmer and is more massive, but is more similar to Jupiter than any other planet that has been imaged so far.”
The temperature of Epsilon Indi Ab
Epsilon Indi Ab has an estimated temperature of 2 degrees Celsius (35 degrees Fahrenheit). It is just around 100 degrees Celsius (180 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than gas giants in our solar system; the temperature on Jupiter’s surface is -110 degrees Celsius (-160 degrees Fahrenheit).
Due to this, properties provide rare opportunities to study the atmospheric composition of true solar system models. It is known to be the eleventh nearest exoplanet to Earth; Epsilon Indi Ab is also the closest planet with a mass greater than Jupiter.
Similar to our Solar System’s Planet
All previously captured exoplanets are the youngest and hottest ones that are still radiating much of the energy from when they first formed, so they are easily found. But once the planet ages, it gets cooler and contracts over time. In this case, it’s hard to capture such very faint planets, and most of their emission is in the mid-infrared.
Epsilon Indi Ab is older, so it is hard to capture. Still, our James Webb Space Telescope has the spatial resolution to separate the planet and the star in our images. It also has a (MIRI) Mid-Infrared Instrument to capture faint planets.
Using a method known as radial velocity, which gauges the host star’s oscillations back and forth along our line of sight, the scientific team decided to investigate Eps Ind A since the system appeared to have signs of a potential planetary body.
Team member Caroline Morley of the University of Texas at Austin stated, “Our prior observations of this system have been more indirect measurements of the star, which allowed us to see ahead of time that there was likely a giant planet in this system tugging on the star.” “For this reason, our team decided to use Webb to observe this system initially.”
The team believes the Epsilon Indi Ab’s atmosphere contains sizable amounts of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and methane, which absorb light with shorter wavelengths. It suggests a very cloudy atmosphere.
All these results are taken with Webb’s Cycle 1 General Observer program 2243. NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will use a coronagraph to direct imaging technology by photographing Jupiter-like worlds orbiting Sun-like stars – something that has never been done before.
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