Artistic concept of how the gas giant revolved alpha centauri a could look
ESA/Webb Copyright: NASA, ESA, CSA, STSCI, R. HURT (Caltech/IPAC)
A giant planet the size of Saturn orbiting a sun -like star has potentially been identified in our nearby star system, Alpha Centauri.
In just four light years from Earth, Alpha Centauri is our closest star system. It consists of three stars: Alpha Centauri A, Alpha Centauri B and a red dwarf star, Proxima Centauri. Scientists have long speculated in Alpha Centauri could be home to the planet about as far away from a star as the Earth is to our sun-the fluid-water-friendly “habitable zone” but conflict if there is someone around the binary stars has proved to be challenging. It’s because ”[the stars] Is so bright, close and moves quickly across the sky, ”said Charles Beichman at the California Institute of Technology in a tribe.
But recent data collected by James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) Mid-Infrared Instrument (Miri) suggests a gas giant as large as Saturn may have been found orbiting Alfa Centauri A, Sun-like star. Found came as something of a surprise. “Webb was designed and optimized to find the farthest galaxies in the universe,” said Beichman, not exoplanets. He said it required careful planning to find this planet careful planning that involved multiple observations, analysis and computer modeling, which “paid for spectacular”.
While previous strategies for finding planets have been dependent on indirect measurements, Jwst did something “much more ambitious” by directly capturing the light from the possible planet, says Alan Boss at Carnegie Science in Washington DC, which was not involved in the study. However, the potential planet was not visible in observations.
“We are facing the case with a disappeared planet!” Said aniker Sanghi, also at Caltech, in a state thing. The team simulated millions of potential circuits to examine this mystery. “We found that the planet in half of the possible circuits that were simulated moved too close to the star and would not have been visible to webb in both February and April 2025,” when the later observations were made, he said.
As a gas giant, it couldn’t support life as we know it. But if confirmed, the finding could have major consequences for our understanding of how planets are formed around stars. “Its very existence in a system of two distinct stars would challenge our understanding of how planets form, survive and develop in chaotic around,” said Sanghi. “It is also the most similar in temperature and age as the gigantic planets in our solar system and closer to our home, Earth.”
Found was advertised in a pair of papers that have been accepted for publication in The astrophysical journal letters.
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