Nearest Super-Jupiter Snapped By JWST – And It's A Freezing Cold Giant

JWST has imaged a new planet directly and it is quite a fascinating object. It orbits one of the three stars in the Epsilon Indi system and it weighs six times the mass of Jupiter. This super-Jupiter is 20 to 40 times further from its star than Earth is from the Sun – so it is very cold.

It also doesn't help that the star, Eps Ind A, is an orange dwarf smaller and cooler than the Sun. The planet, Eps Ind Ab, has an estimated temperature of around 0°C (32°F), much colder than the scorching hot Jupiters that have become a common feature of exoplanet research. The observations were possible thanks to the observations with JWST.

Since the system is just 12 light-years away, it was a perfect target for direct imaging. The issue here is the star would have been too bright for the planet to be revealed. The Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) has a coronagraph, a tool to create an artificial eclipse and to allow us to spot what would be otherwise lost in the glare.

“We were excited when we realised we had imaged this new planet,” lead author Elisabeth Matthews, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), said in a statement. “To our surprise, the bright spot that appeared in our MIRI images did not match the position we were expecting for the planet. Previous studies had correctly identified a planet in this system but underestimated this super-Jupiter gas giant’s mass and orbital separation”

The location of the signal was so surprising that the team had to make sure it was really the planet. The glow of the planet as seen by the telescope is larger than the planet itself and it was important that they were not catching light from a more distant background object.

“It is always hard to be certain, but from the data, it seemed quite unlikely the signal was coming from an extragalactic background source,” explained Leindert Boogaard, another MPIA scientist and a co-author of the research article.

Based on the current observations, the planet has carbon-based molecules in its atmosphere such as methane, carbon dioxide, etc. Or it might be clouds. They will know more with follow-up observations of the planet with JWST.

“Our next goal is to obtain spectra which provide us a detailed fingerprint of the planet’s climatology and chemical composition,” said Thomas Henning, Emeritus Director at MPIA, co-PI of the MIRI instrument, and a co-author of the underlying article.

“In the long run, we hope to also observe other nearby planetary systems to hunt for cold gas giants that may have escaped detection,” added Matthews. “Such a survey would serve as the basis for a better understanding of how gas planets form and evolve.”

Since the system is just 12 light-years away, let’s go on a road trip!

Speed of light, 186,000 miles per second

60 seconds in a minute
3,600 seconds in an hour
86,400 seconds in a day
31,536,000 seconds in a year
378,432,000 seconds in 12 years

70,388,352,000,000 miles away

These numbers are big, let’s make a little more sense out of this.

If I was driving a car at 60 miles an hour, it would take 1,173,139,200,000 years to get there.

That’s one trillion+ years. It’s really hard to wrap your brain around this! And our government throws out budget numbers like this only bigger. Insanity.

Who’s bringing the snacks? I wonder if there’s a Waffle?House on the way....

Just for grins, I asked AI the following question, and this was its answer:

How long with existing technology would it take to travel 12 light-years away from earth:

Based on the search results, we can estimate the time it would take to travel 12 light-years away from Earth using existing technology.

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Voyager 1, the fastest human-made object, has a speed of 17.26 km/s. To calculate the time it would take to travel 12 light-years at this speed:

Convert light-years to kilometers: 12 light-years × 9.461 × 10^12 km/light-year ≈ 1.13 × 10^14 km

Calculate the time: time = distance / speed ≈ 1.13 × 10^14 km / 17.26 km/s ≈ 65,300 years

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The Parker Solar Probe, a spacecraft designed for solar exploration, has a top speed of approximately 192 km/s (0.045c). To calculate the time it would take to travel 12 light-years at this speed:

Convert light-years to kilometers: 12 light-years × 9.461 × 10^12 km/light-year ≈ 1.13 × 10^14 km Calculate the time: time = distance / speed ≈ 1.13 × 10^14 km / 192 km/s ≈ 5,900 years

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Another estimate based on the fastest spacecraft ever built (Solar Probe Plus) with a speed of 724,000 km/h (0.002c) would take approximately 59,627 years to travel 40 light-years (not 12, but provides an upper bound).

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A general estimate from brainly.com and other sources suggests that with current technology, it would take approximately 1,547 years to travel 1 light-year. Scaling this up to 12 light-years:

Time = 12 × 1,547 years ≈ 18,564 years

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Conclusion

Based on existing technology, the estimated time it would take to travel 12 light-years away from Earth varies between approximately 5,900 years (Parker Solar Probe-like speed) and 65,300 years (Voyager 1-like speed). A more general estimate based on current technology suggests it would take around 18,564 years to travel 12 light-years.

These calculations highlight the significant challenges and limitations of interstellar travel with our current technology.

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Unless time really slows for human life in space, it would take a lot of slowing of that process down for any human to arrive alive with our current technology.

That's why I do not believe we are being visited by aliens from other planets. p> At best it may be heavenly spirits, is my thinking. 🙂👍

Right now I would say demons more often than heavenly spirits. 🙁

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