TL;DR by CuriousCats.ai
Webb's findings on WD 1856 b and Earth's fate
- Webb studies how the planet WD 1856 b survived the death of its star, revealing significant insights into the future of planets like Jupiter after the death of the Sun.
- The sun will run out of hydrogen fuel in its core and swell into a red giant star around 5 billion years from now, potentially destroying Mercury, Venus, and possibly Earth.
- The sun will expand more than 100 times its current size, leading to the destruction of the closest planetary neighbors.
- The Webb telescope detected aerosols and hydrocarbons in the atmosphere of WD 1856 b, marking the first time an atmosphere has been observed on a planet transiting a dead star.
Context on WD 1856 b and future implications
- WD 1856 b orbits extremely close to its host star, at a distance 50 times closer than Earth orbits the Sun, and is about the size of Jupiter.
- The temperature of WD 1856 b is about 126 °C, significantly hotter than expected, indicating residual energy from an earlier time.
- The research team concluded that the heating of WD 1856 b likely occurred between 3 and 5.5 billion years after the star became a white dwarf.
- The study of WD 1856 b provides insights into what might happen in our own Solar System in the far future, acting like a time machine for astronomers.
CuriousCats Full Story
Key Insight
“The James Webb Space Telescope has provided insights into how the Jupiter-sized exoplanet WD 1856 b survived its host star's death. This research sheds light on the potential future of Earth as our sun approaches its end.”
CuriousCats studied:
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European Space Agency
“An international team of astronomers has used the to watch the Jupiter-sized exoplanet WD 1856 b transit its host star, measuring the planet’s mass and temperature and even detecting its atmosphere.”
European Space Agency →2
Yahoo
“Earth will be destroyed when our sun dies in around 5 billion years, according to new research using the James Webb Space Telescope.”
Yahoo →3
Popular Science
Popular Science“the sun’s core will exhaust the last traces of hydrogen fuel and kick off the first .”
Popular Science →4
Nature
Nature“Here we report an atmospheric detection for the white dwarf planet WD 1856 b, achieved through transmission spectroscopy with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) PRISM.”
Nature →
