New Image Reveals Saturn-Size Exoplanet Discovery
The image of TWA 7b provides a unique glimpse into the early stages of planetary formation, with three concentric rings of dust and debris around the star, and could be a "trojan disk," where the planet is sculpting the surrounding debris disk. This discovery marks a significant milestone in the study of exoplanets and the James Webb Space Telescope's capabilities.
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has captured a groundbreaking image of a Saturn-mass planet orbiting a young star called TWA 7, located 34 light-years away, offering fresh insights into planetary formation and disk evolution in young systems.
The planet, referred to as TWA 7 b, is the lightest ever seen with this technique outside the solar system and could be a young, cold planet with a mass around 0.3 times that of Jupiter. The discovery was made using Webb's MIRI instrument, which detected a faint infrared source in the disk of debris surrounding TWA 7. The team ruled out other explanations, including a background galaxy, and believes the source is a previously undiscovered planet.
The James Webb telescope has captured direct images of the Saturn-sized exoplanet, TWA 7b, located 110 light years from Earth. This is the first exoplanet discovery by the telescope and the smallest-mass planet to be observed directly, with a mass 10 times less than previous directly observed exoplanets. The planet is a gas giant, about 50 times farther from its star than Earth is from the sun, and has an orbital period of several hundred years.
The discovery highlights Webb's ability to explore low-mass planets around nearby stars and could offer insights into planet formation and disk evolution in young systems. The researchers believe that future Webb observations may provide more information about the planet's atmosphere and whether it is still gaining mass, opening up a new window of exoplanets that had not been accessible to observations before.