A devastating exoplanet pours its intestines

National Port, MD. – For the first time, astronomers have taken a direct look at the interior of an exoplanet.

An exoplanette about 800 light years away is pouring his intestines into space, and new observations with the spatial telescope James Webb, or JWST, have left astronomers to read The Entrails, astronomers report this week at a meeting of American astronomical society.

“If this is true, it is super delightful,” says Mercedez López-Moleles astronomer of the Scientific Institute of Spatial Telescope in Baltimore, which was not included in the new work. “For the first time you can directly study what the interior of an exoplanet has become. This is exciting. “

Planet, a world of size in Neptune called K2 22B, was discovered in 2015. The planet sits strictly near its star, ending an orbit in just nine hours. It is too small to detect itself, but periodically releases the clouds of dark dust that form a comet -like tail, blocking less than 1 percent of the host star light.

Astronomers quickly realized that the dust had probably cooled magma from the inside of the planet. This trail of Planet Viscera offered a unique opportunity to understand the chemical composition of a cloak of an exoplanet.

Getting penetration for every robe of any planet, even the Earth, is challenging, says study co -author Jason Wright of Penn State. “When nature gives you such a gift, you have to get it.”

Wright and colleagues observed K2 22B with the sensitive infrared JWST spectrometer in April 2024. Various minerals in the powder emit specific light wavelengths, letting the team understand what the planet is made.

Dust does not seem to be pure iron, which is what scientists would wait for the planet were a naked core without a robe or crust that surrounded it. “There is still meat left in the bone, to say,” Astronomy Nick Tusay said in a January 14 conversation at the meeting.

But something in the dust released the light that was difficult to connect with any specific material, Tusay said. The researchers first checked to see if the dust grains were magnesium oxide and silicon monoxide, which are cut into the material of the cloak. But those minerals do not fit the data.

Isingudare, dust looks more like nitric oxide and carbon dioxide from the evaporated Ice, says Tusay. “If this is true, what we are seeing is a snow ball that is disintegrating,” he says. Hard hard to explain to a planet so close to his star. “Just just so strange and unexpected.” He has asked more time to observe JWST to learn more. He and his team have also reported their results in a January 14 work in Arxiv.org.

López-morals agrees that more observations are needed to confirm the composition of the planet. “Very very preliminary, very promising, it definitely needs more data,” she says. Observing a handful of other popular disintegration exoplanets would also be interesting.

An newly discovered planet discovered may be the best place to start. A planet discovered with the October -based telescope is emitting such a large dust cloud, it lies halfway around its host star on a 9m -kilometer -long horse, astronomer Marc Hon reported at the meeting on January 15. This is the nearest planet of dissolution on Earth still discovered, so its content will be even clearer in JWST data.

“We have proven that we can do it with K2 22B,” says Tusay. “This will be better.”