CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. The Webb Space Telescope has identified a remarkable exoplanet, dubbed a “super Jupiter,” orbiting a neighboring star at an extraordinarily slow pace. This gas giant, comparable in diameter to Jupiter but with six times its mass, has an orbit that spans over a century, potentially up to 250 years.
The planet, which shares a hydrogen-rich atmosphere with Jupiter, orbits its star—Epsilon Indi A—in a region 15 times farther from its star than Earth is from the sun. This star is part of a three-star system located 12 light-years away, a distance equivalent to 5.8 trillion miles.
Elisabeth Matthews of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany led an international team that captured the planet’s images last year. Their findings were published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The planet was observed through a special shading device on the Webb Telescope, which blocked the starlight to highlight the planet’s infrared emissions.
At 3.5 billion years old, the planet and its star are significantly older than our solar system but not as old as previously anticipated. Despite its proximity, the star is visible to the naked eye from the Southern Hemisphere.
Elisabeth Matthews noted, “This is a gas giant with no hard surface or liquid water oceans,” emphasizing that the likelihood of life on this planet is minimal. She also mentioned that while this solar system may not host more gas giants, there could be smaller rocky planets hidden within.
The discovery adds to our understanding of planetary evolution over billions of years. Since the confirmation of the first exoplanets in the early 1990s, NASA has identified 5,690 exoplanets by mid-July, primarily using the transit method, which detects planets by observing periodic dips in starlight.
The Webb Telescope, launched in 2021 by NASA and the European Space Agency, is the most advanced astronomical observatory ever sent into space, continuing to provide groundbreaking insights into distant worlds and their characteristics.
Gary P Hernal started college at UP Diliman and received his BA in Economics from San Sebastian College, Manila, and Masters in Information Systems Management from Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University in Oak Brook, IL. He has 25 years of copy editing and management experience at Thomson West, a subsidiary of Thomson Reuters.
