'130 light years away': NASA's James Webb Telescope discovers carbon dioxide in deep space
Produced by Tarun Mishra
Produced by Tarun Mishra
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has directly imaged carbon dioxide in a planetary system beyond our own for the first time. The discovery was made in HR 8799, a system located 130 light-years away, providing new insights into how giant planets form.
The presence of carbon dioxide in HR 8799’s giant planets suggests they likely formed through core accretion, a process similar to that of Jupiter and Saturn in our solar system. This method involves solid cores attracting gas over time, rather than forming rapidly from a young star’s cooling disk.
NASA confirmed that the Webb telescope can infer exoplanet chemistry through imaging, in addition to its established spectroscopic capabilities. This means Webb can directly observe and analyse the atmospheric composition of distant planets.
HR 8799 is estimated to be 30 million years old, significantly younger than our 4.6-billion-year-old solar system. The planets in this system are still hot from their formation, emitting strong infrared signals, which provide valuable data on their structure and development.
There are two main theories on how giant planets form: core accretion, where solid materials gradually attract gas, and disk instability, where gas particles rapidly clump together. Identifying which process is more common can help scientists understand planetary evolution across different systems.
By detecting carbon dioxide features, scientists have confirmed that HR 8799’s planets contain heavier elements like carbon, oxygen, and iron. This supports the idea that core accretion is a significant planetary formation process, potentially influencing how other exoplanetary systems are classified.
The research aims to compare our solar system to others, helping scientists determine whether Earth’s planetary system is unique or typical. “We want to take pictures of other solar systems and see how they compare to ours,” said William Balmer of Johns Hopkins University, highlighting the broader search for patterns in planetary formation.