Scientists used JWST instruments ‘wrong’ on purpose to capture direct images of exoplanets

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Last week, astronomers revealed new images of planets at HR 8799 and 51 Eridani Star Systems – all thanks to the creative use of the JMST Telescope (JWST).

William Palmer, PhD and a candidate at Johns Hopkins University and the author James Web telescope for spaceAnd why do these results represent a big leap forward in our understanding of External planetsHow to form and searching for life outside the planet.

“Direct photography is very important to study the distant planets because it tells us most of the information about the structure and formation of their atmosphere, regardless of the light from the host star,” Palmer explained.

Direct photography of remote planets is a major challenge due to several factors. In the foreground, telescopes have difficulty distinguishing light light from a planet of the brighter light emitted by the host star. The glow of the star can overwhelm any signs coming from the planet, which makes it difficult to study the atmosphere in the world in detail. This is also not helpful to the fact that most external planets are incredibly far from us, which limits the ability to take clear pictures of them.

Here is the place where the James Web telescope comes for space. Its advanced technology, including a large mirror and a set of specialized tools, allows the discovery of very faded emissions coming from outer planets in the medium infrared range Electromagnetic spectrum – This ability has opened new borders in external planetary research.

Palmer said: “The different gases in different pressure and temperatures in the planet’s atmosphere will absorb or emit the light of the specified wavelengths, and we can use these chemical prints on the light to mix with increasing clarity not only what the planets are made of, but how you may be on the basis of what was made of it.”

Palmer and his colleagues took the move forward by taking innovative images of the outer planets in HR 8799 and 51 Eridani – They did this using Coronars Jwst in an unconventional way.

“I love to joke that we are in this paper, we used wrongly, but what we really did is to use a very thin part of the Coronagraph mask, allowing more stars light to refresh or leak around the edges of Coronagraph,” Palmer explained.

CrownIt was first developed in 1930 to study Sun Corona, to work by preventing the light of the stars to detect the surrounding things. On JWST, it allows high -contrast from the external planets in the nearby range to the middle of the infrared of the electromagnetic spectrum. However, if Coronagraph is banned a lot of light, they can obscure not only the star but also the nearby planets.

To treat this, the Balmer team modified the Coronagraph masks from JWST, where the size of the stars was set to increase the planetary vision.

“We relied on the stability of JWST, [first] Monitor our goals [and then imaging] Palmer said: “By offering these reference photos from the targeted pictures, the team removed the star’s light, isolated the low signals from the planets by offering these reference photos from the targeted pictures, the team removed the star’s light, and isolated the dim signar from the planets.

“because [the JWST] Very stable, and the differences between the reference and the targeted images are smaller than the light than the planets surrounding our goals [allowing us to detect them more clearly]”Palmer added.

This study is also noticeable to produce the first ever image of HR 8799 at 4.6 microns, which is a wavelength in the mid -infrared range. This is a great achievement, like landThe atmosphere absorbs a lot of light in this wavelength, which makes the ground notes in the range almost impossible.

“The Earth’s atmosphere contains only a short window of transparency at 4.6 microns,” Palmer explained. “Previous land notes have tried to photograph HR 8799 E in these wavelengths and have failed. Some earthly telescopes have larger mirrors than JWST, but our success highlights the importance of JWST stability in these types of discoveries.”

But more exciting for the team was JWST’s ability to monitor 4.3 microns – the wavelengths are completely blocked from the Earth’s atmosphere.

Palmer said: “The most exciting wavelength we were able to reach with JWST is 4.3 microns, as none of these planets has been observed before.” “Since the Earth’s atmosphere has a lot of carbon dioxide, [it] It prevents a large amount of light in this wavelength. “

The JWST feature here is that it is located outside the Earth’s atmosphere, about a million miles (1.5 million km) away from our planet in space.

Carbon dioxide levels reveal basic details about the formation of the planet. In a planetary atmosphere, both carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide are found, but their balance depends on the available amount of oxygen. Since carbon dioxide contains more oxygen from the first carbon monoxide, it is possible that the planet that contains high levels of carbon dioxide has a higher abundance of “heavy” elements such as carbon, oxygen, magnesium and iron. These elements come from the materials that originally formed the planet.

“Given that the strength of the Carbon dioxide feature in the atmosphere of HR 8799 for the planets is very strong, we are somewhat confident that they have a larger part of heavy elements compared to the host star, which means that they must collect these heavy elements from somewhere.”

The most likely explanation is that these planets that were formed through a process called the basic accumulation – where the rock and ice cream has grown enough to capture a thick atmosphere of hydrogen and other gases with its weight.

The study notes also revealed an unexpected diversity in the “colors” of the internal planets of the HR 8799 system. Palmer said: “The differences between the planets of human resources 8799 are very interesting because these planets were previously relatively similar in infrared,” noting this example. “The middle of the infrared puts us in different particles, so the different colors of the planets may be in our forms due to the differences in vertical mixing or composition.”

For example, vertical confusion, which is the process of gases that move up and down to the planet’s atmosphere, can lead to molecules in places that scientists may not expect.

“For example, based on the temperatures of planets 8799, they must have a lot of methane in their upper atmosphere, and therefore we must see the features of large methane absorption,” Palmer said. “Instead, we see very little of methane, and the first carbon oxide is much more. Because vertical mixing may move a warm and rich gas from the deeper layers in the atmosphere in the outer layers, where the” methane “competes that there should be.”

A similar atmosphere in the atmosphere may be at 51 Eridani B, where the discovery of JWST indicates at 4.1 microns to carbon chemistry outside the balance. This planet is much clumsy than expected, most likely to high levels of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide in the upper atmosphere. “This indicates that the planet is probably rich, such as HR 8799, but in particular that the first carbon monoxide and carbon gas rich from the lower planet’s atmosphere is persuaded in the upper atmosphere, where they absorb more light.”

A similar process, for context, also occurs on the ground.

– The James Web Telescope sees four giant strange planets around the nearby star (photos)

– This astronomy was found an additional star in the James Web telescope data

– The James Web telescope is looking for space in the origins of the “failed stars” in the flame nebula

Palmer hopes that future models will improve how they are calculated on the withdrawal and vertical mixing, allowing a better interpretation of high -resolution data. Their team got another 23 hours from the time of JWST to study four additional planetary systems, with the aim of determining whether the gas giants are formed through the basic accumulation. Understanding this process can reveal how the giant planets affect the stability and property of the smallest invisible earthly worlds.