Latest news with #WilliamBalmer
Yahoo
07-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists used JWST instruments 'wrong' on purpose to capture direct images of exoplanets
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Last week, astronomers unveiled exciting new images of planets in the HR 8799 and 51 Eridani star systems — and it was all thanks to a creative use of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). William Balmer, a Ph.D. candidate at Johns Hopkins University and lead author of the study, spoke to about how the images were captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, and why these results represent a major leap forward in our understanding of exoplanets, how they form and the search for extraterrestrial life. "Direct imaging is critical for studying distant planets because it tells us the most information about the structure and composition of their atmospheres, independent of the light from the host star," Balmer explained. Direct imaging of distant planets poses a major challenge due to several factors. Fore one, telescopes have difficulty distinguishing the faint light from a planet from the much brighter light emitted by its host star. The star's glare can overwhelm any signals coming from the planet, making it difficult to study the world's atmosphere in detail. This also isn't helped by the fact that most exoplanets are incredibly far away from us, which further limits the ability to capture clear images of them. Here's where the James Webb Space Telescope comes in. Its advanced technology, including its large mirror and suite of specialized instruments, allows it to detect very faint emissions coming from orbiting exoplanets in the mid-infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum — and this capability has opened a new frontier in exoplanet research. "Different gases at various pressures and temperatures in the planet's atmosphere will absorb or emit light of specific wavelengths, and we can use these chemical imprints on the light to model with increasing clarity not only what planets are made out of, but how they might have formed based on what they're made out of," said Balmer. Balmer and colleagues took this a step further by capturing innovative coronagraphic images of exoplanets in HR 8799 and 51 Eridani — and they did so by using the JWST's coronagraphs in an unconventional way. "I like to joke that for this paper we 'used the coronagraphs wrong,' but what we really did was use a very thin part of the coronagraph mask, which allowed more starlight to diffract or leak around the edges of the coronagraph," Balmer explained. Coronagraphs, first developed in 1930 to study the sun's corona, work by blocking starlight to reveal faint surrounding objects. On the JWST, they enable high-contrast imaging of exoplanets in the near- to mid-infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum. However, if the coronagraph blocks too much light, it can obscure not just the star but also nearby planets. To address this, Balmer's team adjusted the JWST's coronagraph masks, fine-tuning how much starlight was blocked to maximize planetary visibility. "We relied on the stability of the JWST, [first] observing our targets [and then imaging] similar stars without known planets for comparison," said Balmer. By subtracting these reference images from the target images, the team effectively removed the star's light, isolating the faint signals from the planets. "Because [the JWST] is so stable, the differences between the reference and target images are smaller than the light from the planets around our targets [allowing us to detect them more clearly]," added Balmer. The study is also notable for producing the first-ever image of HR 8799 at 4.6 microns, a wavelength in the mid-infrared range. This is a significant achievement, as Earth's atmosphere absorbs much of the light at this wavelength, making ground-based observations in the range nearly impossible. "Earth's atmosphere has only a brief window of transparency at 4.6 microns," Balmer explained. "Previous ground-based observations had attempted to image the innermost HR 8799 e at these wavelengths and failed. Some ground-based telescopes have larger mirrors than JWST, but our success highlights just how crucial the JWST's stability is for these kinds of detections." But even more exciting for the team was the JWST's ability to observe at 4.3 microns — wavelengths completely blocked by Earth's atmosphere. "The most exciting wavelength we had access to with the JWST is at 4.3 microns, where none of these planets had been observed before," said Balmer. "Since the Earth's atmosphere has a lot of carbon dioxide, [it] blocks a large amount of light at this wavelength." The JWST's advantage here is that it exists beyond Earth's atmosphere, about a million miles (1.5 million kilometers) away from our planet in space. Carbon dioxide levels reveal key details about a planet's formation. In a planetary atmosphere, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide are both present, but their balance depends on the amount of oxygen available. Because carbon dioxide contains more oxygen than carbon monoxide, a planet with high carbon dioxide levels likely has a higher abundance of "heavy" elements like carbon, oxygen, magnesium and iron. These elements come from the materials that originally formed the planet. "Since the strength of the carbon dioxide feature in the HR 8799 planets' atmospheres is so strong, we are fairly confident that they have a larger fraction of heavy elements compared to its host star, which means they had to gather those heavy elements from somewhere," said Balmer. The most likely explanation is that these planets formed through a process called core accretion — where rocky and icy cores grew large enough to capture thick atmospheres of hydrogen and other gases with their gravity. The study's observations also revealed unexpected diversity in the "colors" of the HR 8799 system's inner planets. "The differences between the HR 8799 planets are quite interesting because previously these planets have looked relatively similar in the near-infrared," said Balmer, pointing out this example. "The mid-infrared clues us into different molecules, so it might be that the different colors of the planets in our images are due to differences in vertical mixing or composition." For example, vertical mixing, which is the process of gases moving up and down a planet's atmosphere, can result in molecules ending up in places where scientists might not expect them to be. "For instance, based on the temperatures of the HR 8799 planets, they should have a lot of methane in their upper atmospheres, and so we should see large methane absorption features," said Balmer. "Instead, we see very little methane, and a lot more carbon monoxide . This is because vertical mixing has moved warm, CO-rich gas from the deeper layers of the atmosphere up into the outer layers, where it has 'out competed' the methane that should be there." A similar atmospheric process may be at play in 51 Eridani b, where the JWST's detection at 4.1 microns suggests out-of-equilibrium carbon chemistry. This planet is much fainter than expected, likely due to high levels of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide in its upper atmosphere. "This indicates that the planet is probably metal rich, like HR 8799, but more particularly that hot, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide rich gases from the planet's lower atmosphere are convected up into the upper atmosphere, where they absorb more outgoing light." A similar process, for context, also occurs on Earth. — James Webb Space Telescope sees four giant alien planets circling nearby star (images) — This astronomer found a sneaky extra star in James Webb Space Telescope data — James Webb Space Telescope investigates the origins of 'failed stars' in the Flame Nebula Balmer hopes future models will improve how they account for clouds and vertical mixing, allowing for better interpretation of high-precision data. Their team has been awarded 23 more hours of JWST time to study four additional planetary systems, aiming to determine whether their gas giants formed through core accretion. Understanding this process could reveal how giant planets influence the stability and habitability of smaller, unseen terrestrial worlds.
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists used JWST instruments 'wrong' on purpose to capture direct images of exoplanets
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Last week, astronomers unveiled exciting new images of planets in the HR 8799 and 51 Eridani star systems — and it was all thanks to a creative use of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). William Balmer, a Ph.D. candidate at Johns Hopkins University and lead author of the study, spoke to about how the images were captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, and why these results represent a major leap forward in our understanding of exoplanets, how they form and the search for extraterrestrial life. "Direct imaging is critical for studying distant planets because it tells us the most information about the structure and composition of their atmospheres, independent of the light from the host star," Balmer explained. Direct imaging of distant planets poses a major challenge due to several factors. Fore one, telescopes have difficulty distinguishing the faint light from a planet from the much brighter light emitted by its host star. The star's glare can overwhelm any signals coming from the planet, making it difficult to study the world's atmosphere in detail. This also isn't helped by the fact that most exoplanets are incredibly far away from us, which further limits the ability to capture clear images of them. Here's where the James Webb Space Telescope comes in. Its advanced technology, including its large mirror and suite of specialized instruments, allows it to detect very faint emissions coming from orbiting exoplanets in the mid-infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum — and this capability has opened a new frontier in exoplanet research. "Different gases at various pressures and temperatures in the planet's atmosphere will absorb or emit light of specific wavelengths, and we can use these chemical imprints on the light to model with increasing clarity not only what planets are made out of, but how they might have formed based on what they're made out of," said Balmer. Balmer and colleagues took this a step further by capturing innovative coronagraphic images of exoplanets in HR 8799 and 51 Eridani — and they did so by using the JWST's coronagraphs in an unconventional way. "I like to joke that for this paper we 'used the coronagraphs wrong,' but what we really did was use a very thin part of the coronagraph mask, which allowed more starlight to diffract or leak around the edges of the coronagraph," Balmer explained. Coronagraphs, first developed in 1930 to study the sun's corona, work by blocking starlight to reveal faint surrounding objects. On the JWST, they enable high-contrast imaging of exoplanets in the near- to mid-infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum. However, if the coronagraph blocks too much light, it can obscure not just the star but also nearby planets. To address this, Balmer's team adjusted the JWST's coronagraph masks, fine-tuning how much starlight was blocked to maximize planetary visibility. "We relied on the stability of the JWST, [first] observing our targets [and then imaging] similar stars without known planets for comparison," said Balmer. By subtracting these reference images from the target images, the team effectively removed the star's light, isolating the faint signals from the planets. "Because [the JWST] is so stable, the differences between the reference and target images are smaller than the light from the planets around our targets [allowing us to detect them more clearly]," added Balmer. The study is also notable for producing the first-ever image of HR 8799 at 4.6 microns, a wavelength in the mid-infrared range. This is a significant achievement, as Earth's atmosphere absorbs much of the light at this wavelength, making ground-based observations in the range nearly impossible. "Earth's atmosphere has only a brief window of transparency at 4.6 microns," Balmer explained. "Previous ground-based observations had attempted to image the innermost HR 8799 e at these wavelengths and failed. Some ground-based telescopes have larger mirrors than JWST, but our success highlights just how crucial the JWST's stability is for these kinds of detections." But even more exciting for the team was the JWST's ability to observe at 4.3 microns — wavelengths completely blocked by Earth's atmosphere. "The most exciting wavelength we had access to with the JWST is at 4.3 microns, where none of these planets had been observed before," said Balmer. "Since the Earth's atmosphere has a lot of carbon dioxide, [it] blocks a large amount of light at this wavelength." The JWST's advantage here is that it exists beyond Earth's atmosphere, about a million miles (1.5 million kilometers) away from our planet in space. Carbon dioxide levels reveal key details about a planet's formation. In a planetary atmosphere, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide are both present, but their balance depends on the amount of oxygen available. Because carbon dioxide contains more oxygen than carbon monoxide, a planet with high carbon dioxide levels likely has a higher abundance of "heavy" elements like carbon, oxygen, magnesium and iron. These elements come from the materials that originally formed the planet. "Since the strength of the carbon dioxide feature in the HR 8799 planets' atmospheres is so strong, we are fairly confident that they have a larger fraction of heavy elements compared to its host star, which means they had to gather those heavy elements from somewhere," said Balmer. The most likely explanation is that these planets formed through a process called core accretion — where rocky and icy cores grew large enough to capture thick atmospheres of hydrogen and other gases with their gravity. The study's observations also revealed unexpected diversity in the "colors" of the HR 8799 system's inner planets. "The differences between the HR 8799 planets are quite interesting because previously these planets have looked relatively similar in the near-infrared," said Balmer, pointing out this example. "The mid-infrared clues us into different molecules, so it might be that the different colors of the planets in our images are due to differences in vertical mixing or composition." For example, vertical mixing, which is the process of gases moving up and down a planet's atmosphere, can result in molecules ending up in places where scientists might not expect them to be. "For instance, based on the temperatures of the HR 8799 planets, they should have a lot of methane in their upper atmospheres, and so we should see large methane absorption features," said Balmer. "Instead, we see very little methane, and a lot more carbon monoxide . This is because vertical mixing has moved warm, CO-rich gas from the deeper layers of the atmosphere up into the outer layers, where it has 'out competed' the methane that should be there." A similar atmospheric process may be at play in 51 Eridani b, where the JWST's detection at 4.1 microns suggests out-of-equilibrium carbon chemistry. This planet is much fainter than expected, likely due to high levels of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide in its upper atmosphere. "This indicates that the planet is probably metal rich, like HR 8799, but more particularly that hot, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide rich gases from the planet's lower atmosphere are convected up into the upper atmosphere, where they absorb more outgoing light." A similar process, for context, also occurs on Earth. — James Webb Space Telescope sees four giant alien planets circling nearby star (images) — This astronomer found a sneaky extra star in James Webb Space Telescope data — James Webb Space Telescope investigates the origins of 'failed stars' in the Flame Nebula Balmer hopes future models will improve how they account for clouds and vertical mixing, allowing for better interpretation of high-precision data. Their team has been awarded 23 more hours of JWST time to study four additional planetary systems, aiming to determine whether their gas giants formed through core accretion. Understanding this process could reveal how giant planets influence the stability and habitability of smaller, unseen terrestrial worlds.
WIRED
25-03-2025
- Science
- WIRED
Scientists Observe Carbon Dioxide on Planets Outside the Solar System for the First Time
Mar 25, 2025 4:00 AM The findings provide strong evidence that four giant exoplanets 130 light-years from Earth formed much like Jupiter and Saturn. An illustration of the James Webb Space Telescope. Illustration: dima_zel/NASA Carbon dioxide has been detected on a planet outside our solar system for the first time. The gas has been observed directly by the James Webb Space Telescope on four exoplanets, all belonging to the HR 8799 system, located 130 light-years from Earth. The detection of CO 2 offers clues as to how distant planets form, with the observations providing strong evidence that these four giant planets formed in much the same way as Jupiter and Saturn, through the slow formation of solid cores. The findings were published in the most recent issue of The Astronomical Journal. 'By detecting these strong formations of carbon dioxide, we have shown that there is a considerable fraction of heavier elements, such as carbon, oxygen, and iron, in the atmospheres of these planets,' William Balmer, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University and lead author of the paper, said in a statement to NASA. 'Given what we know about the star they orbit, this probably indicates that they formed by core accretion, which, for planets we can see directly, is an exciting conclusion.' HR 8799 is a system that was born 30 million years ago, and so is young compared to our solar system, which has existed for 4.6 billion years. Still hot from their violent formation, the planets of HR 8799 emit large amounts of infrared light. This provides scientists with valuable data on how their formation compares to that of a star or brown dwarf, the term given to large gaseous planets that fail to develop into stars. 'Our hope with this type of research is to understand our own solar system, life, and ourselves in comparison to other exoplanetary systems, so we can contextualize our existence,' Balmer said. 'We want to take pictures of other solar systems and see how they are similar to or different from ours. From there, we can try to understand how strange our solar system really is, or how normal it is.' Carbon dioxide has been an essential ingredient for development of life on Earth, making it a key target in the search for life elsewhere in outer space. Plus, because CO 2 condenses into tiny ice particles in the deep cold of space, its presence can shed light on planetary formation. Jupiter and Saturn are thought to have formed through a process in which a bunch of tiny icy particles coalesced to form a solid core, which then absorbed gas to grow into the gas giants we know today. 'We have other lines of evidence that point to the formation of these four planets in HR 8799 by this bottom-up approach,' Laurent Pueyo, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute and coauthor of the paper, said in a statement to NASA. 'How common is this in long-period planets that we can directly image? We don't know yet, but we propose further observations through Webb, inspired by our carbon dioxide diagnostics, to answer this question.' Unlocking the James Webb Space Telescope's Potential The James Webb Space Telescope should also be given its flowers, as it has shown that it is capable of doing more than inferring the atmospheric composition of exoplanets from measurements of starlight; in fact, it has demonstrated its ability to directly analyze the chemical composition of atmospheres as far away as these. Normally, the JWST can barely detect an exoplanet as it crosses in front of its host star, due to the great distance that separates us. But on this occasion, direct observation was made possible by the JWST's coronagraphs—instruments that block starlight to reveal otherwise hidden worlds. 'It's like putting your thumb in front of the sun when you look at the sky,' Balmer said. This setting, similar to a solar eclipse, allowed the team to look for infrared light at wavelengths coming from the planet that reveal specific gases and other atmospheric details. 'These giant planets have very important implications,' Balmer said. 'If these huge planets act like bowling balls cruising through our solar system, they can disrupt, protect or, in a sense, do both to planets like ours. Therefore, better understanding their formation is crucial to understanding the formation, survival, and habitability of Earth-like planets in the future.' This story originally appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.
Yahoo
23-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
James Webb Space Telescope Captures Images of Individual Planets in Distant Star System
Astronomers using the mighty James Webb Space Telescope have captured direct images of four planets in a star system 130 light years from Earth — an astonishingly eagle-eyed feat of cosmic photography. The planets, all young gas giants, were spotted in HR 8799, a system that's only around 30 million years old. Though already extensively probed, these latest observations, as detailed in a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal, provide compelling evidence that the nascent worlds are rich in carbon dioxide — a promising sign that they formed in a similar way to the gas giants of our solar system, Jupiter and Saturn. "By spotting these strong carbon dioxide features, we have shown there is a sizable fraction of heavier elements, like carbon, oxygen, and iron, in these planets' atmospheres," lead author William Balmer, an astrophysicist at John Hopkins University, said in a NASA statement. It's rare that astronomers capture a direct glimpse of exoplanets. Generally, they produce little to no light of their own, and are vastly outshone by the light of their host star, plus the untold number of luminous objects in the night sky. As such, even detecting an exoplanet is rare; so far, only 6,000 worlds outside our solar system have been discovered, and they're usually spotted by searching for dips in the light of a star they cause when they pass in front of one from our perspective. In their work, Balmer and his team used a special instrument, known as a coronagraph, built into the James Webb's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) specifically designed to blot out the light of stars while searching for exoplanets. "It's like putting your thumb up in front of the sun when you're looking up at the sky," Balmer told Agence France-Presse. That allowed the astronomers to see the "light that is emitted from the planet itself, as opposed to the fingerprint of that light from the host star," Balmer added. The incredible snapshots provided astronomers with a clear look at the presence of CO2 in the distant exoplanets, which could lead to key insights on gas giant formation throughout the cosmos. It's widely believed that Jupiter and Saturn were born by first forming heavy, solid cores that pulled in lighter elements nearby — like carbon dioxide — slowly accreting mass over time. But another theory known as disk instability — which is pretty controversial — holds that gas giants can also spawn in the massive protoplanetary disk that surrounds a star shortly after it's born. Clumps of matter in this circumstellar cloud, the theory holds, could rapidly collapse into protoplanets. Balmer and his team's findings suggest that the traditional "core accretion" is the one in evidence in the young star system. It's too early to declare that this is the prevailing way that gas giants form throughout the universe, but it's a valuable clue. "We have other lines of evidence that hint at these four HR 8799 planets forming using this bottom-up approach," said coauthor Laurent Pueyo, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, in the NASA statement. "How common is this for planets we can directly image? We don't know yet, but we're proposing more Webb observations to answer that question." "We want to take pictures of other solar systems and see how they're similar or different when compared to ours," Balmer added. "From there, we can try to get a sense of how weird our solar system really is — or how normal." More on astronomical quartets: Scientists Discover Four Intriguing Planets Around Closest Single-Star Solar System to Earth
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Webb telescope just snapped direct image of worlds many light-years away
You don't see this every day. It's rare for any observatory to directly image a planet beyond our solar system, called an exoplanet, but the powerful James Webb Space Telescope has captured four of them in the stellar system HR 8799. These large, gaseous worlds are located 130 light-years away in the Milky Way galaxy (a light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles). Importantly, viewing these worlds also revealed major parts of their composition, and how they likely formed. "Our hope with this kind of research is to understand our own solar system, life, and ourselves in the comparison to other exoplanetary systems, so we can contextualize our existence," William Balmer, an astronomer at Johns Hopkins University who led the new research, said in a statement. "We want to take pictures of other solar systems and see how they're similar or different when compared to ours. From there, we can try to get a sense of how weird our solar system really is — or how normal." The research recently published in The Astrophysical Journal. SEE ALSO: NASA dropped a new report. It's a wake-up call. It's tremendously challenging to capture direct images of exoplanets — as opposed to common observational methods like watching them transit in front of their stars — because their nearby stars are profoundly luminous, engulfing the exoplanets in light. But Webb blocked out much of the star's intrusive light with an instrument called a coronograph. What's more, these four worlds are large, young, and hot, and orbit relatively far from their star. "From there, we can try to get a sense of how weird our solar system really is — or how normal." You can see four of these planets below. "The closest planet to the star, HR 8799 e, orbits 1.5 billion miles from its star, which in our solar system would be located between the orbit of Saturn and Neptune," NASA explains. "The furthest, HR 8799 b, orbits around 6.3 billion miles from the star, more than twice Neptune's orbital distance." A star symbol covers the star HR 8799, whose light has been blocked. No, they don't contain the stunning detail we see on the closeby planets in our solar system. Even so, you're seeing far-off worlds in another part of the galaxy. The four visible planets of the multi-planet system HR 8799. Credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / W. Balmer (JHU) / L. Pueyo (STScI) / M. Perrin (STScI) Crucially, directly viewing these planets allowed astronomers to analyze the unique light signals emanating from these worlds; these wavelengths match certain elements or molecules. Of note, the researchers detected the gases carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. These planets are extremely young, at some 30 million years old, so astronomers suspect they formed like Saturn and Jupiter, wherein they forged dense solid cores and then gravitationally pulled plentiful surrounding gases like carbon dioxide around them. (Alternatively, sometimes planets might form when they rapidly fuse together inside the rapidly spinning disk of dust and gas around a new star, meaning they're largely composed of the same stuff as their star.) As Balmer noted above, we need to spy what's transpiring in other corners of the galaxy to better grasp how strange, or not, our solar system neighborhood truly is. Already, we know that many other solar systems contain curious super-Earths — which are bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune — but there's no such world in our system. The Webb telescope captured clear "spectral fingerprints" of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide in the planet HR 8799 e's atmosphere. Credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / J. Olmsted (STScI) Featured Video For You NASA video shows stunning scene from extremely volcanic world Io The Webb telescope — a scientific collaboration between NASA, ESA, and the Canadian Space Agency — is designed to peer into the deepest cosmos and reveal new insights about the early universe. It's also examining intriguing planets in our galaxy, along with the planets and moons in our solar system. Here's how Webb is achieving unparalleled feats, and may for years to come: - Giant mirror: Webb's mirror, which captures light, is over 21 feet across. That's over two-and-a-half times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope's mirror, meaning Webb has six times the light-collecting area. Capturing more light allows Webb to see more distant, ancient objects. The telescope is peering at stars and galaxies that formed over 13 billion years ago, just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. "We're going to see the very first stars and galaxies that ever formed," Jean Creighton, an astronomer and the director of the Manfred Olson Planetarium at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, told Mashable in 2021. - Infrared view: Unlike Hubble, which largely views light that's visible to us, Webb is primarily an infrared space telescope, meaning it views light in the infrared spectrum. This allows us to see far more of the universe. Infrared has longer wavelengths than visible light, so the light waves more efficiently slip through cosmic clouds; the light doesn't as often collide with and get scattered by these densely packed particles. Ultimately, Webb's infrared eyesight can penetrate places Hubble can't. "It lifts the veil," said Creighton. - Peering into distant exoplanets: The Webb telescope carries specialized equipment called spectrographs that will revolutionize our understanding of these far-off worlds. The instruments can decipher what molecules (such as water, carbon dioxide, and methane) exist in the atmospheres of distant exoplanets — be they gas giants or smaller rocky worlds. Webb looks at exoplanets in the Milky Way galaxy. Who knows what we'll find? "We might learn things we never thought about," Mercedes López-Morales, an exoplanet researcher and astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics-Harvard & Smithsonian, previously told Mashable.
