NASA spotted "heck" of a new planet unlike any other defying all explanations

Scientists using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have spotted a planet that looks and behaves in ways no one expected. Webb is the world’s most powerful infrared space telescope, developed by NASA with the European Space Agency (ESA) and Canadian Space Agency (CSA). Unlike optical telescopes, Webb mainly observes infrared light — electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths longer than visible red light — allowing it to study cool planets, dusty regions, and distant galaxies invisible to ordinary telescopes.

The planet, called PSR J2322-2650b, is about the same mass as Jupiter but orbits a pulsar. A pulsar is a rapidly spinning neutron star — the ultra-dense collapsed core left behind after a massive star explodes in a supernova. Although neutron stars can contain more mass than the Sun, they are only about the size of a city. Pulsars emit beams of electromagnetic radiation from their magnetic poles, and as they rotate, those beams sweep through space like a lighthouse beam. This discovery is unusual because only a handful of planets have ever been found around pulsars, and none of them resemble this one.

PSR J2322-2650b has an atmosphere made mostly of helium and carbon. An atmosphere is the layer of gases surrounding a planet, held in place by gravity. Scientists study atmospheres by examining how light interacts with them, since different gases absorb specific wavelengths that reveal their chemical makeup. Instead of the usual molecules seen on exoplanets — planets beyond our Solar System — such as water or methane, scientists detected molecular carbon, specifically C₂ and C₃. Molecular carbon consists entirely of carbon atoms bonded together and is extremely unusual in planetary atmospheres, where carbon normally combines with oxygen or hydrogen to form compounds such as carbon dioxide or methane.

“This was an absolute surprise,” said Peter Gao of the Carnegie Earth and Planets Laboratory. “I remember after we got the data down, our collective reaction was ‘What the heck is this?’ It's extremely different from what we expected.”

The planet’s chemistry is extreme. Observations show carbon-to-oxygen ratios greater than 100 and carbon-to-nitrogen ratios above 10,000. The carbon-to-oxygen ratio compares the abundance of carbon atoms to oxygen atoms in an atmosphere and helps scientists understand how planets form and evolve chemically. Most known exoplanets have far lower values. Such extraordinarily high ratios suggest the atmosphere is almost pure carbon.

Michael Zhang of the University of Chicago explained, “The planet orbits a star that's completely bizarre — the mass of the Sun, but the size of a city. This is a new type of planet atmosphere that nobody has ever seen before.”

Temperatures on the planet range from about 1,200°F on the cooler night side to 3,700°F on the hotter day side. Soot-like carbon clouds drift through the atmosphere, and under the enormous pressure inside the planet, these clouds could eventually turn into diamonds. Researchers believe crystallization may be occurring deep inside the object. Crystallization is the process in which atoms arrange themselves into ordered solid structures called crystals. Under extreme planetary pressure and temperature, carbon can crystallize into diamond-like material.

Roger Romani of Stanford University added, “As the companion cools down, the mixture of carbon and oxygen in the interior starts to crystallize. Pure carbon crystals float to the top and get mixed into the helium, and that's what we see. But then something has to happen to keep the oxygen and nitrogen away. And that's where the mystery comes in.”

The planet is extremely close to its pulsar, only about 1 million miles away. For comparison, Earth is about 100 million miles from the Sun. Because of this tight orbit, the planet completes a year in just 7.8 hours. The intense gravity from the pulsar stretches the planet into a lemon-like shape. Gravity is the force that attracts objects with mass toward one another, and when extremely strong objects lie close together, gravitational tidal forces can physically distort nearby planets and stars.

This system may be related to what astronomers call a “black widow” system, a binary system in which a pulsar gradually strips material away from a nearby companion star using intense radiation and streams of high-energy particles. High-energy particles are subatomic particles accelerated to enormous speeds by powerful magnetic fields and rapid rotation. But in this case, the companion is officially considered an exoplanet because it is below 13 Jupiter masses.

Zhang noted, “Did this thing form like a normal planet? No, because the composition is entirely different. Did it form by stripping the outside of a star, like ‘normal’ black widow systems are formed? Probably not, because nuclear physics does not make pure carbon.”

What makes this discovery possible is Webb’s infrared vision. Infrared light is especially useful in astronomy because it can pass through cosmic dust and reveal cool or faint objects. The pulsar emits mostly gamma rays and high-energy particles, which Webb cannot directly observe. Gamma rays are the most energetic form of electromagnetic radiation and are usually produced by violent cosmic events such as pulsars, neutron stars, and black holes. Because Webb is designed specifically for infrared astronomy, the telescope can observe the planet’s spectrum without interference from the pulsar itself.

A spectrum is the pattern created when light is separated into its different wavelengths. Different atoms and molecules leave unique fingerprints in a spectrum by absorbing or emitting specific wavelengths, allowing astronomers to determine a planet’s composition, temperature, and atmospheric properties from enormous distances.

“This system is unique because we are able to view the planet illuminated by its host star, but not see the host star at all,” said Maya Beleznay of Stanford University. “So we get a really pristine spectrum. And we can study this system in more detail than normal exoplanets.”

Of the roughly 6,000 known exoplanets, PSR J2322-2650b is the only one that resembles a hot Jupiter orbiting a pulsar. Its unusual atmosphere, extreme chemistry, distorted shape, and strange dynamics are opening entirely new questions about how planets form, evolve, and survive in some of the harshest environments in the universe.

Source: NASA, Chicago University

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