{"id":813789,"date":"2026-07-21T06:15:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T06:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/813789\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T06:15:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T06:15:15","slug":"researchers-used-two-telescopes-to-discover-a-planet-hidden-in-plain-sight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/813789\/","title":{"rendered":"Researchers Used Two Telescopes to Discover a Planet Hidden In Plain Sight"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Orange-hued,\u2018This image, taken with ESO\u2019s Very Large Telescope (VLT) shows Beta Pictoris d, a new planet found orbiting the star Beta Pictoris. The star is at the centre of the frame, and was subtracted when processing the data, revealing the environment around it. The new planet, indicated with an arrow, is the third one found around this star. The other two are Beta Pictoris b \u2013\u2013 the bright source to the left, and Beta Pictoris c, orbiting much closer to the star and not seen here.\u2019 | ESO\/B. Sutlieff, M. Bonse et al.<\/p>\n

Astronomers using the NASA\/ESA\/CSA James Webb Space Telescope<\/a> (JWST) discovered a giant planet, hiding in plain sight just outside the solar system. <\/p>\n

This newly discovered exoplanet is orbiting the nearby star Beta Pictoris, which was already known to be home to two giant exoplanets, Beta Pictoris b, one of the first exoplanets ever directly imaged<\/a>, and Beta Pictoris c. The new one, Beta Pictoris d, is located in one of the most widely studied systems in the Milky Way galaxy. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe newly identified Beta Pictoris d makes it only the second planetary system known to contain at least three imaged planets,\u201d NASA explains<\/a>. \u201cUnlike Beta Pictoris b and c, however, Beta Pictoris d was discovered not by identifying a bright point of light, but by detecting the unique chemical fingerprint of its atmosphere, a technique that could transform the search for worlds around other stars.\u201d <\/p>\n

While the James Webb Space Telescope is well-known for its stunning photos<\/a>, much of the space telescope\u2019s most robust science is not quite so glamorous to look at. The discovery of Beta Pictoris d is a perfect example of this. <\/p>\n

Webb itself located the planet by accident thanks to its Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec). Researchers were using NIRSpec to study the atmosphere of the already-known Beta Pictoris b when they noticed an unexpected signal in the data. <\/p>\n

\"A\u2018Researchers used the NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) Integral Field Unit on NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope to map chemical contents of the Beta Pictoris system. As a result, they discovered a third planet, Beta Pictoris d, orbiting the young star.\u2019 | NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Leah Hustak (STScI); Science: Aidan Gibbs (UC San Diego), Jean-Baptiste Ruffio (UC San Diego), Alexis Bidot (STScI); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was an unexpected bright source of light within the Integral Field Unit imaging, but we\u2019ve learned not to trust bright blobs in images,\u201d says Jean-Baptiste Ruffio, a research scientist at the University of California, San Diego, and the principal investigator of the first Webb observations at the discovery site. \u201cThey can be instrumental artifacts or other structures in the debris disk. By obtaining a spectrum at the same time as the image, we were able to quickly confirm our suspicions.\u201d <\/p>\n

Webb\u2019s spectrographic instruments can tell scientists a lot about an object, including its chemical composition and motion. What the scientists expected to see in the NIRSpec data was a smooth spectrum, indicative of light bouncing off of cosmic dust. <\/p>\n

What they found instead were absorption lines indicative of the presence of carbon monoxide, an \u201cexpected feature in giant planet atmospheres.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Image\u2018The newly discovered third planet orbiting Beta Pictoris, Beta Pictoris d, is seen in reconstructed imagery from NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope\u2019s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph).\u2019 | NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Science: Aidan Gibbs (UC San Diego), Jean-Baptiste Ruffio (UC San Diego); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)<\/p>\n

Follow-up observations using Webb\u2019s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) through a Director\u2019s Discretionary Time request located water vapor and methane, further confirming the presence of a newly discovered exoplanet. <\/p>\n

\u201cA spectrum contains an incredible amount of information,\u201d Ruffio said. \u201cYou don\u2019t just learn that something is a planet; you immediately begin learning about its temperature, chemistry, and motion,\u201d Ruffio continues. <\/p>\n

Ben Suttlieff of the University of Edinburgh and Markus Bonse of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) promptly started a study using the ESO\u2019s Very Large Telescope, which worked alongside Webb\u2019s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) to confirm the existence of Beta Pictoris d independently. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

As for why Beta Pictoris d remained hidden for all this time, even when scientists extensively studied its home, NASA says that the planet lives inside \u201cone of the brightest debris disks known.\u201d <\/p>\n

This \u201cdusty disk\u201d is basically cosmic fog, scattering light from the star Beta Pictoris and making it very difficult for conventional imaging techniques to separate a planet from the surrounding visual noise. <\/p>\n

\"AnAn artist\u2019s rendition of Beta Pictoris and its exoplanets. Beta Pictoris d is shown at the right, and it has the widest orbit of any of the discovered exoplanets around Beta Pictoris. | NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Ralf Crawford (STScI)<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Webb\u2019s spectroscopic instruments can see through the dust, leading to the discovery. <\/p>\n

This is the first directly imaged planet ever discovered through this type of spectroscopy, and it demonstrates to scientists that they may very well have an effective new tool at their disposal to find exoplanets. <\/p>\n

CreditsThe relevant research paper, \u2018Discovery of an Exterior Third Planet Orbiting \u03b2 Pictoris<\/a>,\u2019 has been published in The Astrophysical Journals, by Aidan Gibbs, Jean-Baptiste Ruffio, Alexis Bidot, Travis S. Barman, Clarissa R. Do \u00d3, Quinn M. Konopacky, Marshall D. Perrin, Aneesh Baburaj, Beck Dacus, Bruce Macintosh, Alex Madurowicz, and Jerry W. Xuan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018This image, taken with ESO\u2019s Very Large Telescope (VLT) shows Beta Pictoris d, a new planet found orbiting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":813790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[305,64,63,388674,388675,11047,40161,36751,128,285,18166],"class_list":["post-813789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-astronomy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-betapictoris","tag-betapictorisd","tag-exoplanet","tag-jameswebbspacetelescope","tag-jwst","tag-science","tag-space","tag-webb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}