An international team of astronomers has used the James Webb Space Telescope to take a picture of the exoplanet Epsilon Indi Ab, located approximately 12 light years from Earth.
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It is one of the coldest exoplanets observed to date, with a temperature of about 2°C — colder than any other planet outside our solar system that has been photographed, and any other such object except one free-roaming brown dwarf, NASA’s press service reported.
Epsilon Indi Ab has a mass several times greater than Jupiter and orbits the star Epsilon Indi A, which is about the same age as our Sun but slightly cooler.
The discovery is exciting because the planet is very similar to Jupiter – it’s a little warmer and more massive, but it’s more like Jupiter than any other planet that’s been imaged before, the scientists say.
Previously photographed exoplanets tend to be the youngest, hottest exoplanets that are still radiating much of the energy they gained from their formation. As planets cool and contract over their lifetimes, they become much dimmer and therefore more difficult to image.
Epsilon Indi Ab is only 100 degrees Celsius warmer than the gas giants in our solar system, giving astronomers a rare opportunity to study the atmospheric composition of true solar system analogues.
Scientists have only been able to make a few photometric measurements of the atmosphere, but it has already turned out that the planet is dimmer than expected at short wavelengths. Scientists believe that this could indicate the presence of significant amounts of methane, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide in the planet’s atmosphere, which absorb short wavelengths of light. It could also indicate a cloudy atmosphere.
Direct imaging of exoplanets is particularly valuable—scientists can directly collect light from an observed planet and compare its brightness at different wavelengths.
Astronomers have been imagining planets in this system for decades: Fictional planets orbiting Epsilon Indi have been the setting for Star Trek episodes, novels, and video games like Halo, the researchers note. “It’s exciting to see the planet with our own eyes and start measuring its properties.”
The hottest exoplanet in our galaxy has been detected.
Source: Racurs
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