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A Jupiter-Like 'Oddball' Planet Survived Its Star’s Death. It May Show What Happens After Our Sun Dies
Webb’s spectrum suggests the planet retained methane and may have migrated inward after its star died, challenging a recent engulfment scenario.
- On Wednesday, a study published in Nature detailed findings from the James Webb Space Telescope regarding a Jupiter-size planet orbiting a dead white dwarf star, surviving its host's destruction in a way previously thought impossible.
- Astronomers remain uncertain how the planet survived, as massive stars typically engulf nearby planets when collapsing into white dwarfs; researchers proposed the 'engulfment model' or the 'gravitational interaction model' to explain survival.
- Webb's spectrum revealed methane signatures, suggesting the planet avoided engulfment; data indicates a temperature of about 260 degrees Fahrenheit and a mass between four and 11 times that of Jupiter, with heating occurring about 1 billion years ago.
- The system acts as a preview for our own solar system, as the host star will swell into a red giant in 5 billion years, likely engulfing planets like Mercury and Venus.
- Scientists continue to investigate whether orbits could change dramatically over trillions of years, potentially bringing gas giants like Saturn to migrate as close to the solar white dwarf as this planet.
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The Discovery of a Planet Orbiting a Dead Zone Could Foreshadow What Will Happen to Our Solar System
New observations could offer new clues about how a giant exoplanet survived the violent death of its host star and came to orbit closely its stellar remnants.
The Discovery of a Planet Orbiting a Dead Star Could Foreshadow What Will Happen to Our Solar System
By Ashley Strickland, CNN. New observations could offer fresh clues about how a giant exoplanet survived the violent death of its host star and came to orbit its stellar remnants so closely. The findings could serve as a preview of the fate that might await the largest planets in our solar system — such as the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn — when the sun dies in 5 billion years. Astronomers in 2020 detected a puzzling Jupiter-sized planet hurtli…
·Panama City, United States
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Coverage Details
Total News Sources28
Leaning Left3Leaning Right3Center9Last UpdatedBias Distribution60% Center
Bias Distribution
- 60% of the sources are Center
60% Center
L 20%
C 60%
R 20%
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