Exploring Planet VHS 1256 b
Have you ever felt the hot and uncomfortable sand licking your face? That’s nothing compared to what is happening on planet VHS 1256 b! Using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, researchers discovered that clouds there are full of tiny silicate particles. Plus, these clouds are always changing! The investigators think that when the silicates get too heavy, they fall as rain into the planet’s atmosphere. Scientists have also noticed signs of water, methane, carbon monoxide and even carbon dioxide on this mysterious world. Learning more about this place is only just beginning – we can expect to find out more soon as they look closer at all the “rainfall” of data coming from the telescope!
Gaining Insight on Planet VHS 1256 b through the James Webb Telescope
Scientists used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to discover the atmosphere of a faraway planet. During the day, which lasts for 22 hours, the stuff in the atmosphere changes a lot due to it constantly rising, mixing, and moving around. These changes cause brightness differences that make this planet the most variable one ever observed! The research team also detected molecules of water, methane, carbon monoxide and evidence of carbon dioxide – a total record-breaking number of molecules identified at once in any other planet outside our solar system!
The planet VHS 1256 b is around 40 light-years away, and it orbits two stars every 10,000 years. This planet is four times farther from its stars than Pluto is from our Sun – which means that one can view its light clearly without any mix of the stars’ lights. Additionally, at the top of its atmosphere there are clouds which cause temperatures to reach a huge 1500°F (or 830°C).
Webb found both big and small dust grains made out of silicates in the clouds. Beth Biller from Scotland’s University of Edinburgh said that the tiny grains in the atmosphere look like smoke particles and the bigger ones are like super hot, mini-sized sand.
VHS 1256 b is much lighter than other brown dwarfs, which causes its silicate clouds to be seen in the sky – something that can be detected by Webb. In addition, this planet is quite young – it has only been around for 150 million years! As time goes on, it will continue to mature and become cooler.
The team is excited because they believe that the new findings are like finding ‘treasure’ from a big treasure chest. They have only just started looking into it and still need to do more research to understand it better. This information is not everything we need to know about this planet yet – there’s even more work involved in using all of the data we collected with Webb.
Other telescope have observed similar features on planets in the Milky Way, but usually only one at a time. Andrew Skemer from UC Santa Cruz said something special about this finding though – that the James Webb telescope had managed to spot lots of different molecules all at once which gives us a good understanding of the planet’s weather and cloudy skies.
The team used two instruments on the Webb Telescope – Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) – to collect data called “spectra”. Since the planet orbits very far from its stars, they were able to look at it directly, instead of using other methods like the transit technique or a coronagraph.
Scientists will continue to learn more about VHS 1256 b using Webb Telescope’s strong infrared data. Even with only a few hours of observation, we can make many crazy discoveries!
In billions of years from now, VHS 1256 b is going to become colder and the sky may change from cloudy to clear. Scientists are using a program called Webb’s Early Release Science which will help them study this planet and the disks it forms around.
A group of researchers recently had their paper about a planet called, ‘VHS 1256-1257 b’ published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. This study looks at the spectrum of this planet from 1 to 20 microns.
Scientists recently published a paper in The Astrophysical Journal Letters which discusses a 1 to 20 Micron Spectrum of the Planetary-Mass Companion VHS 1256-1257 b. It was written by Brittany E. Miles, Beth A. Biller and other researchers from around the world. Through their research, they were able to gain an understanding of the planet’s physical attributes and behavior.
The James Webb Space Telescope is a big space program. Its main goal is to figure out what’s happening in our solar system, other stars’ planets, and why our universe exists. This project is managed by three organizations: NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency.
