Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

On September 2, NASA released an image of exoplanet HIP 65426b captured by James Weber Space Telescope on Thursday, the first direct image of an exoplanet taken by Weber.

Photo Source: NASA

HIP 65426b is a young gaseous giant planet, only 15 million to 2000 years old. It is 6 to 12 times the mass of Jupiter and is about 385 light-years from Earth. Scientists used various instruments on the Weber Telescope to capture multiple images of HIP 65426b.

"this is also a transformative moment for the entire astronomy community," Sasha Hinkley (Sasha Hinkley), an associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Exeter who studies exoplanets, said in a statement.

In 2017, the very large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory in Chile first discovered and observed HIP 65426b through short-wave infrared. For ground-based telescopes, infrared light with longer wavelengths is blocked by the earth's atmosphere. But the Weber Telescope, which runs in space, can capture more infrared light and observe more details of distant planets.

The HIP 65426b image taken by Weber Telescope is not the first time humans have directly captured exoplanets, and the Hubble Space Telescope has successfully captured pictures of other exoplanets. This is not easy because bright light from stars near the planet may mask light from exoplanets, such as the parent star of HIP 65426b, which is 10, 000 times brighter. The vast majority of exoplanets can only be observed when the brightness of the parent star decreases temporarily. So far, scientists have only directly captured images of 24 exoplanets.

But the distance between HIP 65426b and its parent star is 100 times greater than that between Earth and the sun, helping scientists identify the exoplanet in images taken by the Weber Telescope. The Weber Telescope is also equipped with a coronometer, which can cover distant stars, reduce the interference of strong light, and make it easier for scientists to find and focus exoplanets.

"the coronometer carried by Weber is very good at suppressing the glare of the host star," Hinkley said. "

The images were taken with multiple filters and near-infrared cameras (Nircam) and mid-infrared detectors (Miri) carried by the Weber Telescope, which scientists hope will also capture more images of exoplanets and make more discoveries. Prior to this, the Weber Telescope made the first observation of the spectrum of exoplanet Wasp 39b, indicating the presence of carbon dioxide in the exoplanet's atmosphere.

Aarynn Carter, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Santa Cruz, also analyzed the new image of HIP 65426b. "the most exciting thing is that we are just getting started," he said in a statement. "there will be more images of exoplanets in the future, which will reshape our overall understanding of exoplanets at the physical, chemical and celestial formation levels; we may even discover previously unknown exoplanets."

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