Using observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, researchers have identified “silicate cloud features” in a distant planet’s atmosphere, according to the space agency. Apart from detecting what could be sand particles, the researchers also detected the presence of water, methane, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. Named VHS 1256 b, the planet is over 40 light years away from us and it orbits two stars over a 10,000 year period. Essentially, a “year” on the planet goes on for about 10,000 earth years. The atmosphere on the planet VHS 1256 b constantly rises, mixes and moves during its 22-hour day. This brings up hot material and pushes cold material, resulting in brightness changes that it is one of the most variable planetary-mass objects known to date. “VHS 1256 b is about four times farther from its stars than Pluto is from our Sun, which makes it a great target for Webb. That means the planet’s light is not mixed with light from its stars.” Higher up in its atmosphere, where the silicate clouds are churning, temperatures reach a scorching 1,500 830 degrees Celsius,” said Brittany Miles, lead author of a research article on the topic published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, in a NASA press statement. VHS 1256 b is categorised as a brown dwarf, which means that it is a celestial object that is too small to be an ordinary star. But it has low gravity compared to other more massive brown dwarfs. This means that the silicate clouds on the planet can appear and remain higher in the atmosphere where the James Webb Space Telescope can detect them. While it has been nearly 150 million years since the planet was formed, it is still young in astronomical terms. Its “youth” could be another reason for its turbulence. It will continue to change as it cools over billions of years. While the researchers have already found out a lot about the planet, these findings are just the beginning, according to them. “We’ve identified silicates, but better understanding which grain sizes and shapes match specific types of clouds is going to take a lot of additional work. This is not the final word on this planet – it is the beginning of a large-scale modelling effort to fit Webb’s complex data,” added Miles.
