There is carbon dioxide It was first detected on planets outside the solar system. This gas is directly observed by the James Webb Space Telescope on four exoplanets, all belonging to the HR 8799 system, located 130 light years from Earth. Detect co2 It provides clues as to how distant planets form, and the observations provide strong evidence that these four giant planets formed almost in the same way as Jupiter and Saturn, providing a slow formation of solid cores. The survey results were Published In the latest issue of the Astronomy Journal.
“Detecting the formation of these powerful carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of these planets shows that there is a significant proportion of heavy elements, such as carbon, oxygen, and iron. Given what we know about the stars in orbit, this indicates that they were probably formed by core accretion.”
The HR 8799 is a system that was born 30 million years ago and is younger than the solar system, which has existed for 4.6 billion years. Still hot from their violent formation, the HR 8799 planet emits a large amount of infrared rays. This provides valuable data on the formation of stars or brown dwarfs and how they are given to large gaseous planets that cannot develop into stars.
“Our hope in this type of study is to understand our own solar system, life, and ourselves, compared to other exoplanet systems. “We want to take pictures of other solar systems and see how they are similar to ours or different from ours. From there we can try to understand how strange our solar system is in fact, or how normal it is.”
Carbon dioxide is an essential component of the development of life on Earth and is an important target for searching for life elsewhere in the universe.
Furthermore,2 Condensed into small ice particles in the deep cold of the universe, their existence can shed light on the planetary layers. Jupiter and Saturn are thought to have been formed through the process of small bundles of ice particles combining to form a solid core, which absorbed gas and grew into the gas giant we know today.
“There is other evidence pointing to the formation of these four planets in HR 8799 through this bottom-up approach,” Laurent Pueyo, an astronomer and co-author of the paper at The Space Telescope Science Institute, said in a statement to NASA. “How common is this on long-term planets that we can directly image? We don’t know yet, but to answer this question, we propose to observe further through Webb, inspired by the carbon dioxide diagnosis.”
Unlock James Webb Space Telescope Possibility
James Webb’s space telescope also shows that it can do more than infer the atmospheric composition of an exoplanet from starlight measurements, so flowers should also be given. In fact, it has demonstrated its ability to directly analyze atmospheric chemical compositions in the same way as those far apart.
Normally, JWST can barely detect exoplanet when crossing in front of a host star due to the large distance separating us. However, taking this opportunity, direct observations have been made possible by the JWST coronagraph. It is an installation that blocks starlight and reveals an otherwise hidden world.
“When you look at the sky, it’s like putting your thumb in front of the sun,” Ballmer said. This setting, like solar eclipse, allowed us to search for infrared rays at wavelengths coming from planets that reveal specific gases and other atmospheric details.
“These giant planets have very important implications,” Ballmer said. “If these giant planets act like bowling balls around our solar system, they can disrupt, protect planets like us, or both.
This story originally appeared Wired enespañol Translated from Spanish.
