The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has managed to photograph one of the exoplanets orbiting the star 14 Herculis. This is one of the coldest extraterrestrial worlds known to us.
Cold exoplanet
14 Herculis is located 60 light years from Earth. It is an orange dwarf, similar in age and temperature to our Sun, but slightly less massive and cooler. Astronomers have discovered two exoplanets in this system. Both are gas giants with masses 7–8 times greater than that of Jupiter.
A team of American astronomers used the JWST to photograph the exoplanet 14 Herculis c, which is located in a more distant orbit. Observations have shown that this is one of the coldest extraterrestrial worlds known to us. Data obtained by JWST showed that its temperature is only -3 °C.
The orbit of 14 Herculis c passes at a distance of about 2.2 billion km from its star. In our Solar System, it would be located between Saturn and Uranus. At the same time, the orbit of 14 Herculis c has a high eccentricity.
The JWST data also shed some light on the characteristics of this world’s atmosphere. 14 Herculis c turned out to be less bright in the mid-infrared range than expected. Researchers link this to a chemical imbalance of carbon, which is often observed in cold brown dwarfs. Molecules formed at higher temperatures in the lower layers of the atmosphere rise very quickly. Therefore, instead of the expected methane, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide dominate their spectra.
X-shaped star system
This is far from the only discovery made by JWST during its study of this system. It turned out that the orbits of the two exoplanets do not lie in the same plane, as in our Solar System. Instead, they are tilted relative to each other at an angle of about 40 degrees. Externally, it can be compared to a giant letter X with a star in the center.
Scientists are working on several theories about how the planets of 14 Herculis deviated so much from the plane. One of the most popular theories is that the “disruption” occurred early in its formation after the third exoplanet was ejected from the system.
This suggests that something similar could have happened to our Solar System, and that the fate of small planets such as Earth is often determined by much more powerful external forces.
Recently, James Webb discovered rocky clouds in the atmosphere of another exoplanet.
According to Phys.org
