NASA's James Webb telescope discovers weird exoplanet with sandy clouds and two suns

The James Webb Space Telescope has another exoplanet discovery to its name. The infrared observatory, says NASA, has spotted the planet named VHS 1256 b which is located about 40 light-years away and orbits two stars over a 10,000-year period. However, what is making astronomers excited is the amount and types of molecules the James Webb telescope has uncovered at once. 

Sand…coarse, rough, gets everywhere. We may have found it on VHS 1256 b, a Tatooine-like world orbiting twin suns. Among other molecules, Webb detected silicate dust grains in its atmosphere. The larger grains may be like very hot, small sand particles: https://t.co/cl0jPDVYST pic.twitter.com/nwgMPpXFH4

— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb)

Characteristics of the exoplanet

The exoplanet VHS 1256 b is about four times farther from its stars than Pluto is from the Sun, the team of scientists led by Brittany Miles of the University of Arizona has found. This extreme distance is what made this planet a suitable target since its light that reached Webb does not have the light of its star mixed in it. It is worth noting that the Webb telescope is designed to observe the universe in infrared. Its instrument captures the infrared wavelength of light emerging from different objects (a planet in this case), breaks it into spectra like a bar code and studies this bar code which has information about the planet's composition stored in it. 

The data gathered by the observatory has confirmed the presence of water, methane and carbon monoxide along with silicate which is churning in the clouds of the upper atmosphere where temperatures reach 830°C. “The finer silicate grains in its atmosphere may be more like tiny particles in smoke,” astronomer Beth Biller of Scotland's University of Edinburgh said. “The larger grains might be more like very hot, very small sand particles.”

Webb's new finding excites scientists

(The exoplanet's emission spectrum representing the composition of elements; Image: NASA)

Scientists are excited about the new findings because Webb has identified the largest number of molecules all at once on a planet outside our solar system. Moreover, this exoplanet is the most variable planetary-mass object known to date as its atmosphere is constantly rising, mixing, and moving, bringing hotter material up and pushing colder ones down during its 22-hour day. The reason for this is the planet's age, scientists say. This exoplanet is extremely young in astronomical terms, only 150 million years old, and it will continue to change and cool down over billions of years. 

“No other telescope has identified so many features at once for a single target,” said Andrew Skemer of the University of California, Santa Cruz. “We’re seeing a lot of molecules in a single spectrum from Webb that detail the planet’s dynamic cloud and weather systems.” NASA says that all the information about the planet was gathered using two of Webb's instruments--  the Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) and the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). Owing to its distance from its parent stars, scientists observed it directly through Webb instead of using the transit method or a coronagraph. Meanwhile, the research team is planning follow-up studies to learn more about this planet's unique features.