HIP 65426b is the name given to the first exoplanet captured by James Webb. This celestial body that was described with a mass six to twelve times that of Jupiter — also captured by Webb. Yes, the largest planet in our entire solar system. However, unlike the rest of Earth’s sister planets, this is a fairly young object.

Judging by the comments from the site POT, HIP 65426b is between 15 and 20 million years old.. As such, it is considered a fairly young planet, especially when compared to our 4,500-million-year-old ancient Earth.

How far is HIP 65426b? While researchers believe that may be located approximately 385 light years from Earth. That is, by astronomical standards, this is one of our closest neighbors. Its nature, like that of the giant Jupiter, tends to be gaseous, as is often the case with all planets larger than a certain size.

How did James Webb capture an exoplanet so far from our solar system?

NASA image of exoplanet HIP 65426b

Carter, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, led the analysis. “Getting this image was like looking for a cosmic treasure.“At first, all I could see was the light from the star, but with careful image processing, I was able to remove that light and reveal the planet.”

Of course, Carter’s words are not unfounded. After all, These are the first images of an exoplanet taken by the James Webb spacecraft.. To do this, the scientists behind the telescope had to develop new ways to observe exoplanets, since the light from these bodies is often too diffuse to be observed.

In each filtered image, the planet appears as a patch of light with slightly different shapes. This is due to the peculiarities of Webb’s optical system and how he transmits light through various optics.

POT

Thus, coronographs – masks capable of blocking starlight – managed to eliminate the light of the parent star of this exoplanet. Of course, in addition to obtaining images of it, James Webb also surrounded the celestial body with an artifact obtained during the creation process. For this reason, they should not be understood as physical forms in the space surrounding the planet. The same applies to the six-pointed diffraction peaks that can be seen in several of the images taken by James Webb.

More about exoplanet HIP 65426b

Mirrors of the James Webb Space Telescope

In addition to its size and age, this exoplanet is about 100 times farther from its parent starat least using the distance between the earth and the sun.

On the other hand, its brightness is about 10,000 times fainter than that of its parent star in the near infrared (NIRCam). For this reason, observing it without the use of coronographs would have been a much more difficult task.

“This is a transformative moment not only for Webb, but for astronomy in general,” said Sasha Hinckley, Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Exeter, UK.

Although James Webb was the first telescope to directly observe HIP 65426b in infrared light, he was not the first to detect this celestial object. Actually, was first discovered in 2017 by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope. and the SPHERE instrument in Chile.

Hubble Space Telescope was the first to be able to take pictures of exoplanets directly. However, thanks to the infrared imaging devices on James Webb, a new door has opened, which we have not yet explored in detail. In fact, Webb has already detected water vapor in the atmosphere of another gas giant called WASP 96b.

Source: Hiper Textual

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