NASA’s Webb Studies How Planet Survived Death of its Star
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NASA’s Webb Studies How Planet Survived Death of its Star
NASA’s James Webb Discovers Bizarre Salt Clouds on the Pink Planet
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Article Contents Image: Exoplanet WD 1856 b (Artist's Concept) How big, how hot Image: Exoplanet WD 1856 b (Transmission Spectrum) Solar system’s possible future Downloads & Related Information Related Links NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is giving us new insight into the far-future of solar systems like our own, as the agency continues to reveal the secrets of the universe and our place in it.
Billions of years ago, a Sun-like star nearing the end of its life swelled tremendously in size to become a red giant before ejecting its outer layers, leaving a hot, remnant core known as a white dwarf. As a red giant, the star should have engulfed and destroyed any nearby planets. Yet astronomers have found a Jupiter-sized exoplanet orbiting the white dwarf every 34 hours at a separation of less than 2 million miles (3 million kilometers).
To solve the mystery of how this exoplanet survived, an international team of astronomers used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to watch the Jupiter-sized exoplanet WD 1856 b transit its host star, measuring the planet’s temperature and detecting molecules in its atmosphere. They found the planet is significantly warmer than expected and determined how it most likely reached its very tight orbit around the white dwarf star. The results are a window into the future of planets like Jupiter after the death of the Sun, billions of years into the future.
The results published Wednesday in the journal Nature. WD 1856 b was discovered in 2020 by scientists using NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) and the retired Spitzer Space Telescope. It orbits the white dwarf WD 1856+534, which is located about 80 light-years from Earth.
“The planet is about the size of Jupiter, but the white dwarf it orbits is the size of Earth, so the planet is seven times larger than its star," said lead author Ryan MacDonald of the University of St. Andrews in the United Kingdom. WD 1856 b orbits extremely close to its host star, a distance 50 times closer than Earth orbits the Sun.
If WD 1856 b had originally been orbiting at that distance, it would have been obliterated while the star was a red giant. How did it survive the death of its host star and end up in its current position? How big, how hot The new study used Webb to watch the planet passing in front of its star.
This transit yielded unique information about the planet’s mass, which is between four and eleven times the mass of Jupiter. The team also was able to determine the planet’s temperature. During the transit, light from the star was partly blocked, but infrared light was reduced less than other wavelengths.
The difference was infrared light emitted by the planet from its own heat. The data indicated that the planet has a temperature of about 260 degrees Fahrenheit (126 degrees Celsius) — significantly hotter than it would be if its only source of heat was the light from the white dwarf. This puzzling discovery turned out to be the key fact that proved how the planet must have reached its current orbit.
Christopher O’Connor of Northwestern University in Illinois, a co-author on the paper, was responsible for tracing the temperature of the planet back in time. O’Connor said, “The big question is how WD 1856 b ended up where it is today, and there are two theories. One is that the planet was swallowed by the host star as it was dying, and managed to survive on the inside.
The other is that migration took place due to the gravitational effect of other objects in the system. The white dwarf is part of a triple star system, and the companion stars could have influenced WD 1856 b’s orbit.” The researchers realized that there was no source of energy present to generate that heat today, so it must be residual energy from an earlier time when the planet was heated. Using models of how sub-stellar objects like WD 1856 b cool down over time, coupled with the new data from Webb, the team was able to project its temperature back in time and deduce how long ago the heating must have happened.
The timing is key to determining whether the heating was from being engulfed by the red giant or occurred during an inward migration
How 🏛 SciTechDaily Covers It
James Webb uncovered exotic salt clouds surrounding the famous “Pink Planet,” solving a long-standing mystery about one of the coldest known alien worlds. Astronomers led by Northwestern University have uncovered an extraordinary feature surrounding the universe’s famous “Pink Planet”: skies filled with salt clouds. For more than a decade, this ancient world, known for its rosy appearance, puzzled scientists.
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