James Webb telescope captures one of the coldest exoplanets, 6 times the size of Jupiter, 12 light years away

James Webb Telescope: As the voyage of James Webb Space Telescope continues, NASA said its premier space observatory has captured a direct image from one of the coldest exoplanets, Epsilon Indi Ab, which is 12 light years away from Earth.

The image snapped by JWST shows Epsilon Indi Ab in a mostly black area, with blue scale-like features in the central region. The exoplanet is the bright orange circle in the picture.

Epsilon Indi Ab is one of the coldest exoplanets observed to date, NASA said in a release.

Its temperature is estimated to be 2 degrees Celsius colder than any other imaged planet beyond the solar system

Six times larger than Jupiter, it orbits the K-type star Epsilon Indi A (Eps Ind A), which is as old as the Sun but cooler.

"The team observed Epsilon Indi Ab using the coronagraph on Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument)," NASA said. So far only a handful of exoplanets were directly captured by observatories.

“This discovery is exciting because the planet is quite similar to Jupiter — it is a little warmer and is more massive, but is more similar to Jupiter than any other planet that has been imaged so far,” NASA quoted Elisabeth Matthews of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany as saying.

“Our prior observations of this system have been more indirect measurements of the star, which actually allowed us to see ahead of time that there was likely a giant planet in this system tugging on the star,” said team member Caroline Morley of the University of Texas at Austin. “That's why our team chose this system to observe first with Webb.”

Exoplanets captured in the past were hotter, as they are still radiating much of the energy from the time of their formation.

As planets cool and contract over their lifetime, they become significantly fainter and therefore harder to image, NASA noted.

What are cold planets?

“Cold planets are very faint, and most of their emission is in the mid-infrared,” said Matthews.

Morely noted that fictional planets orbiting Epsilon Indi have been featured in Star Trek episodes, novels, and video games like Halo.

“It's exciting to actually see a planet there ourselves, and begin to measure its properties.”

Epsilon Indi Ab is the 12th closest exoplanet to Earth known to date and the closest planet more massive than Jupiter.

(With inputs from agencies)