The Webb Space Telescope switched its infrared to an extraterrestrial view and they found thick clouds swirling in its atmosphere. A strange world.
The planet — VHS 1256b — has a 22-hour day but is unusually distant from the two orbiting stars that orbit together at the center of the system. Astronomers used Webb’s Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) to observe the planet and they found it. Looks like there is an upper atmosphere. illegal clouds. persistence of smoke. Coarse clouds are visible deep in the planet. More sediment. Unlike Earth’s clouds, the exoplanet’s clouds are as hot as a candle flame, according to the Space Telescope Science Institute. release.
A NASA poster describes clouds as “swirling” and “pushing” and notes that changes in brightness are caused by cloud movement. “It is so dramatic that it is the most heterogeneous planetary-mass object known to date.
VHS 1256b is four times more distant than Pluto Sun, which is one of its 10,000 Earth years.
Astronomers also found clear signs of water, methane, and carbon monoxide, as well as some symptoms of carbon dioxide. How these molecules appear on the planet – in which clouds they swirl or how deep in the planet they are – is still unclear.
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“High-resolution data from the internet confirms our current models,” said Polychronis Batapis, an astronomer at ETH Zurich in Switzerland. STSCI Publication “Current models can include a feature or two, but not as much as Webb showed us that target. »
This isn’t Webb’s first foray into exoplanet observation. The $10 billion space observatory is still in its first year of scientific observations, but it has already released a Dazzling Portfolio of Space Images.
A spectrum of exoplanets is included in A Testimony to the Importance of Extraterrestrial Worlds with Webb’s Early Scientific Observational Publications. of the work Scientific goals. Webb discovered his first carbon dioxide on Another World in August. The first images of the exoplanet followed in September. November is said to express a noxious extraterrestrial atmosphere, and a brand new exoplanet was discovered in January.
VHS 1256b is another piece of the exoplanet puzzle. Astronomically, the planet is relatively young. 150 million years (now we’re talking about Earth years again). For comparison: Our planet is about 4.6 billion years old.
As VHS 1256b ages, scientists believe it will cool and the thick cloud cover in its sky may clear. Until then, the planet is in its own hot, cloudy chaos.
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