NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has provided new insights into a star that was believed to be swallowing a planet whole. Contrary to previous theories, the observations suggest that the planet’s orbit actually shrank over time, bringing it closer to its demise until it was engulfed in full.
The telescope’s high-resolution look in the infrared revealed valuable information about the final fates of planetary systems, including our own. Two instruments aboard Webb – MIRI and NIRSpec – conducted the post-mortem of the scene, which helped researchers come to their conclusion using a two-pronged investigative approach.
Initially, data from NASA’s NEOWISE showed that the star brightened in the infrared a year before the optical light flash, hinting at the presence of dust. However, Webb’s MIRI revealed that the star was not as bright as it should have been if it had evolved into a red giant, indicating there was no swelling to engulf the planet.
Researchers suggest that the planet was about Jupiter-sized and orbited quite close to the star, leading to the catastrophic consequence. The team’s findings appear today in The Astrophysical Journal, shedding new light on this rare event and opening more questions for researchers.
The James Webb Space Telescope is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe. With its powerful sensitivity and spatial resolution, Webb is poised to witness fleeting changes and help us understand how the universe works.
Source: https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasa-webbs-autopsy-of-planet-swallowed-by-star-yields-surprise