The telescope’s MIRI instrument, managed by NASA JPL through launch, detected a compact object in the disk of debris surrounding a nearby star.
The telescope’s MIRI instrument, managed by NASA JPL through launch, detected a compact object in the disk of debris surrounding a nearby star.
Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have captured compelling evidence of a planet with a mass similar to Saturn orbiting the young nearby star TWA 7. If confirmed, this would represent Webb’s first direct image discovery of a planet and the lightest planet ever seen with this technique outside the solar system.
The international team detected a faint infrared source in the disk of debris surrounding TWA 7 using Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument). The distance between the source and TWA 7 is estimated to be about 50 times the distance of Earth from the Sun. This matches the expected position of a planet that would explain key features seen in the debris disk. The results were published Wednesday, June 25, in the journal Nature.
Using MIRI’s coronagraph, the researchers carefully suppressed the bright glare of the host star to reveal faint nearby objects. This technique, called high-contrast imaging, enables astronomers to directly detect planets that would otherwise be lost in the overwhelming light from their host star. After subtracting residual starlight using advanced image processing, a faint infrared source was revealed near TWA 7. The team ruled out an object in our solar system that happened to be in the same part of the sky as the source. While there is a very small chance that it is a background galaxy, the evidence strongly points to the source being a previously undiscovered planet.
Read More: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Image: NASA’s Webb imaged a possible planet with a mass similar to Saturn orbiting the star TWA 7. Light from the star has been subtracted from this image to reveal the candidate planet, shown in data from Webb’s MIRI (orange, upper right). The star’s location is indicated with a circle with a star symbol. Its debris disk (blue) was imaged by ESO’s Very Large Telescope. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Anne-Marie Lagrange (CNRS, UGA), Mahdi Zamani (ESA/Webb)
