NASA’s Webb Telescope will explore a new target: may be the youngest exoplanet ever discovered – Scientific Exploration – cnBeta.COM

According to CNET, astronomers said Tuesday that the world‘s largest radio telescope —The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile — may have picked up a signal from the youngest exoplanet ever discovered.

这是一个新生的世界，被认为具有类似木星的质量，并围绕着处于“青春期”的恒星AS 209运行，这是一个据称有160万年历史的“气体球”，漂浮在距离地球大约395光年的蛇夫座中。

然而，正如发现团队在发表于《天体物理学杂志通讯》的关于这一发现的研究中所指出的，他们还不能100%确定这颗系外行星真的存在。即使它真的存在，天文学家们也不完全知道它是同类中最年轻的。这方面还有一些误差，所以需要进一步的调查–由于这颗候选系外行星似乎也被笼罩在气体和尘埃的光环中，这一努力变得困难。

有趣的是，这个“环行星盘”是科学家们认为一颗系外行星位于AS 209附近的主要原因。据推测，这些星环会产生卫星，并帮助新生的行星发展成为强大的天体–尽管事实上，智利的66个高空天线阵列可能只是探测到了随机的物质块，而不是星盘内的一个完整的球体。

But is there anything to clarify this now? Is there anything that can penetrate deep into the distant, hard-to-study universe and penetrate the thick “veil” of gas and dust? The infrared “superheroes” of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will strike again.

In the near future, the research team intends to use the infrared resolving capabilities of the JWST to first confirm whether AS 209 is really 1.6 million years old. JWST may then be able to discern whether there is a planet in the dust halo — and if so, JWST has the potential to use infrared spectroscopy to give us a really clear picture.

Unlike ordinary images, spectral datasets provide information about chemical composition, atmospheric cloud content, and other such qualities that cannot be captured with an aesthetic snapshot.

“The best way to study planet formation is to observe planets as they form. We are living in very exciting times, thanks to powerful telescopes like ALMA and JWST,” said University of Florida astronomy professor and lead author of the paper Jaehan Bae said in a press release.

Science images from the study show (right) spherical light emission in the voids of the highly structured seven-ring disk (left) surrounding AS 209. This suggests the possible existence of an exoplanet.

If Bae and other scientists are correct, there is a super-young exoplanet hovering around AS 209, which could be a huge development in the field of astronomy and add to the exciting account of the JWST revelation.

That’s because, in addition to being very young, this exoplanet candidate appears to be an anomaly among the more than 5,000 exoplanets identified so far. Its signal to ALMA was more than 18.59 billion miles away from its host star, which the team said challenges currently accepted theories of planet formation. For context, Earth is only about 93 million miles from the sun.

此外，很幸运的是，这个潜在的世界被一个环行星盘所包裹，特别是其中有气体存在。直到2019年，ALMA的科学家在观测另一颗年轻的系外行星，即PDS 70c时，才首次发现这一现象。根据去年发表的一篇论文，那个光环很可能是在为这个气态巨行星构建一个卫星。但是从那时起，专家们就没有再发现什么了。

研究作者写道：“CPD的基本属性，比如它们的大小，以及它们是否确实是旋转支持的‘圆盘’，或者是压力支持的包络体，都没有得到充分的了解。”

但是拥有这些知识可以帮助天文学家们推断太阳系中包括地球在内的行星的古老动态，也可以告诉天文学家们像月球这样的卫星在很久以前是如何形成的。解读这个圆盘和系外行星之间的相互作用，可以让研究人员了解行星大气和一般环境的形成方式和原因。

目前，人们对隐藏在蛇夫座中的潜在新兴世界寄予厚望。研究作者乐观地写道，到目前为止，对ALMA的结果最可能的解释是，人们正在目睹一颗行星及其CPD嵌入AS 209周围的区域。