NASA’s James Webb discovers a ‘hellish’ world 40 light years from Earth: Planet’s atmosphere has swirling hot sand clouds that reach temperatures of a scorching 1,500F
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has identified several details of a new ‘hellish’ planet, which scientists proclaim as a first in cosmic history.
The $10 billion telescope determined VHS 1256 b, a planet about 40 light years from Earth, has an atmosphere of swirling hot sand clouds that are constantly rising, mixing and moving during its 22-hour day.
Higher up in its atmosphere, where the silicate clouds are churning, temperatures reach a scorching 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit.
The team, led by Brittany Miles of the University of Arizona, also made clear water, methane and carbon monoxide detections with data from the telescope and found evidence of carbon dioxide.
Only 150 million years have passed since it formed – making it relatively young in astronomical terms – and scientists believe its youth explains why the skies are so turbulent.
Co-author Andrew Skemer, of the University of California, Santa Cruz, said in a statement: ‘No other telescope has identified so many features at once for a single target.
‘We’re seeing a lot of molecules in a single spectrum from Webb that detail the planet’s dynamic cloud and weather systems.’
The observations were made using JWST’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) and the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI).
The NIRSpec is designed to observe 100 objects simultaneously.
MIRI has both a camera and a spectrograph that sees light in the mid-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum, with wavelengths that are longer than our eyes see.
Using the instruments, the telescope detected larger and smaller silicate dust grains within these clouds.
Co-author Beth Biller of the University of Edinburgh said: ‘The finer silicate grains in its atmosphere may be more like tiny particles in smoke.
‘The larger grains might be more like very hot, very small sand particles.’
The researchers found that the planet has low gravity compared to more massive brown dwarfs, which means its silicate clouds can appear and remain higher in its atmosphere where Webb can detect them.
‘We’ve identified silicates, but better understanding which grain sizes and shapes match specific types of clouds is going to take a lot of additional work, said Miles.
‘This is not the final word on this planet – it is the beginning of a large-scale modeling effort to fit Webb’s complex data.’
Source: daily mail
NASA’s James Webb discovers a ‘hellish’ world 40 light years from Earth: Planet’s atmosphere has swirling hot sand clouds that reach temperatures of a scorching 1,500F