James Webb telescope reveals the truth about the planet from nowhere, where sand turns to clouds

For the first time, humanity has learned more clearly about what constitutes the mysterious object between the two states of a failed star and a superplanet, thanks to the magic eye of the James Webb Transcendental Telescope.

According to Sci-News, from spectral data from the James Webb Space Telescope of NASA/ESA/CSA (space agencies of the US, Europe and Canada), astronomers have found evidence of clouds of sand as well as water, methane, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, sodium and potassium in the atmosphere of the young brown dwarf VHS J125601.92-125723.9b, VHS J1256b for short.

Graphic depicting a brown dwarf.

VHS J1256b is a member of a system of three brown dwarfs located 72 light-years from Earth in the crow-shaped constellation Corvus. This triple brown dwarf system is approximately 140 million years old.

VHS J1256b is located 150 astronomical units away from the other two brown dwarfs in the system (AU, the distance from the Sun to Earth), while the other two brown dwarfs come together as a pair.

Although called "stars" brown dwarfs, objects like VHS J1256b are not really stars, but are in a state of half-star, half-planet. It is too big to be a planet, has more "advanced" elements than a planet, but is too small and cannot sustain fusion in its core like a star.

For this reason, brown dwarfs are also known as "failed stars" or "superplanets".

Like stars, it was born "out of nowhere," rising from a cloud of gas and dust, not from a protoplanetary disk like other planets. It has no "mother star", drifting through the universe, dark, colder than any other type of star. Some brown dwarfs are thought to be cool enough to be habitable, like a planet.

The newly discovered brown dwarf is quite small in the brown dwarf community with a radius of 1.27 times that of Jupiter, about 11-19 times more massive than Jupiter.

In the new study, University of California astronomer Brittany Miles and colleagues collected and analyzed the detailed spectra of VHS J1256b.

"The light observed from an exoplanet contains information about the planet's composition, atmospheric dynamics and other major physical properties," she explains.

Although there are things that make up the atmosphere of this brown dwarf star, there are things that are considered reliable "signatures" of extraterrestrial life such as water or methane, but this is still hardly a "planet". from nowhere" carries the life that scientists expect, because it has an average temperature of up to 820 degrees Celsius.

The authors say the spectrum of VHS J1256b is one of the widest and has the highest signal-to-noise spectrum of a brown dwarf or planet to date, so even without life, data on it is still there. treasure for astronomers.

The most interesting thing is probably the silicate clouds, or sand clouds, floating in the sky of this monstrous world.

"The properties of VHS 1256b paint a picture of a very dynamic atmosphere, where turbulent convection promotes both imbalanced chemistry and the formation of condensable gases, which form patchy silicate clouds leading to planetary transformation," the authors wrote.

This groundbreaking discovery is thanks to James Webb, a super telescope much more powerful than its predecessors "planet hunters".

The team hopes: "This observatory will be a pioneering tool, advancing our understanding of atmospheric physics for massive planets, brown dwarfs and exoplanets in the future." many years to come".

The research has just been approved by the American Astronomical Society (AAS) and will be published officially in one of AAS's peer-reviewed journals.