NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope recorded the first direct image of the planet; Not what you expected? Check the details
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured the first direct image of a planet (HIP 65426 b) outside our solar system. Here’s all you need to know.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured the first direct image of a planet outside our solar system. It is known that the exoplanet is a gas giant, which means it has no rocky surface and is not habitable. Announced about the same, “Webb Telescope tweeted,” Talk about this world! This is Webb’s first direct image of a planet outside our solar system, and it hints at Webb’s future ability to study distant worlds: https://go. nasa.gov/3KGJ9OU Not what you expected? Let’s go through the details. “
According to the information provided, the gas giant named HIP 65426 b has about 6-12 times the mass of Jupiter. It’s as young as the planets – about 15 to 20 million years old, compared to our 4.5 billion year old Earth. “The image, seen through four different light filters, shows how Webb’s powerful infrared gaze can easily capture worlds beyond our solar system, pointing the way to observations. The future will reveal more information than ever about alien planets.” NASA said in a blog post.
Each of Webb’s four views is at a different wavelength of infrared light. The white star is the location of the host star. Its light is blocked by Webb’s coronagraphs, or small masks. The bar shapes in the NIRCam view are artifacts of telescopic optics, not physical objects.
Astronomers discovered the planet in 2017 using the SPHERE instrument on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile and imaged it using short wavelengths of infrared light. . Webb’s view, at longer infrared wavelengths, reveals new details that ground-based telescopes would not be able to detect due to the intrinsic infrared light of Earth’s atmosphere.
“Researchers have analyzed data from these observations and are preparing a paper that they will submit to journals for peer review. But Webb’s first capture of an alien planet. chimpanzees hinted at future possibilities for studying distant worlds,” the blog post reads.
Additionally, because HIP 65426 b is about 100 times farther from its host star than Earth is from the Sun, it is far enough away from the star that Webb could easily separate the planet from the star in the image. Directly photographing alien planets is challenging because stars are much brighter than planets. The planet HIP 65426 b is 10,000 times fainter than its host star in the near-infrared and several thousand times dimmer in the mid-infrared.
In each filter image, the planet appears as a blob of slightly different shape. That’s because of the characteristics of Webb’s optical system and the way it passes light through the different optics.