The NASA/ESA/CSA “Space Telescope James Webb” first directly measured the chemical and physical composition of the near -planet disc, surrounding the massive exoplanet CT Cha B. This carbon -containing disk, located at a distance of 625 light years from the ground, can serve as a kind of “construction site” for future satellites, although the Moon (satellites) themselves have not yet been discovered. The results are published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
According to published data on the official website of the European Space Agency (ECA), more than 400 satellites circulating around six planets are known in the solar system. Scientists have long assumed that large moons, such as four Galilee satellite Jupiter, formed from the disk of dust and gas, surrounding the planet in its formation more than 4 billion years ago. However, direct evidence still did not exist.
Webba observations provided the first data on such a disk around the exoplanets. CT Cha B rotates around a young star only 2 million years old, which still absorbs a substance from a protoplanetary disk. But the near -planet disc, opened by the “Webba” is not related to the disk of the star: they are divided by a distance of 74 billion km.
astronomers managed to identify seven carbon -containing molecules in the CT Chal -containing molecules, including acetylene (C₂H₂) and benzene (C₆h₆). This discovery became possible thanks to the infrared spectrostograph Miri, which allowed to separate the weak signal of the planet from the bright radiation of the star.
“We saw molecules in the place where the planet should be, and we realized that something important was hiding. We had to spend a year to understand the data, but the perseverance of Surrra Grant noted itself. From the Carnegie Institute in Washington.
The main author of the work of Gabriela Kunho from the University of Zurich in Switzerland added that scientists see what materials are gathering in the planet and its future satellites. “The WebB telescope allows you to observe the process of forming the moon in action,” said Kuno.
According to scientists, such discoveries help to cling to the origin of the Galileo satellites of Jupiter – Io, Europe, Ganyveda and Kallisto. The last two contains up to 50% of water ice, but their nuclei probably consist of carbon and silicon.
“to understand how the Moon has formed in our system, we must study young systems that are still in the process of formation. Webb gives us the opportunity to observe this process for the first time in history,” Kuno emphasized.
in the next year, the team plans to conduct a series of observations of others Similar objects to study the variety of chemistry and the physical properties of disks around young planets. This will compare the data obtained with the processes that occurred at the birth of the solar system.
“James Webb” is the largest space telescope created in the partnership of the NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency. Europe ensured the launch of the apparatus on the Ariane 5 missile, and also developed the NIRSPEC spectrograph and half of the Miri tool equipment.