{"id":507494,"date":"2026-06-19T06:47:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T06:47:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/507494\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T06:47:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T06:47:16","slug":"scientific-frontline-jwst-discovers-salt-clouds-on-the-famous-pink-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/507494\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientific Frontline: JWST Discovers Salt Clouds on the Famous Pink Planet"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>Discovered in 2013, the Pink Planet orbits a sun-like star located 57 light-years from Earth. At roughly 25 times the mass of Jupiter, it sits near the fuzzy boundary between giant planets and brown dwarfs. So, astronomers refer to it as a \u201cplanetary-mass companion,\u201d meaning that it\u2019s a planet-sized object orbiting a star.
Illustration Credit: NASA\/Goddard Space Flight Center
Scientific Frontline: Extended “At a Glance” Summary: The “Pink Planet” (GJ504b)<\/p>\n

The Core Concept: The “Pink Planet” (GJ504b) is an extremely cold planetary-mass companion located 57 light-years from Earth that possesses an atmosphere enveloped in salt clouds. Roughly 25 times the mass of Jupiter, the object sits near the boundary between giant exoplanets and brown dwarfs.<\/p>\n

Key Distinction\/Mechanism: Due to its advanced age and low temperature of 550 degrees Fahrenheit, the object is too faint to analyze using standard ground-based telescopes. Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers captured the companion’s light and stripped away the host star’s glare to analyze its spectrum, revealing that salt clouds are actively masking the deeper molecular signatures in its atmosphere.<\/p>\n

Origin\/History: Discovered in 2013, the Pink Planet eluded precise atmospheric analysis for over a decade. In June 2026, researchers at Northwestern University published groundbreaking JWST observations, providing the first direct evidence for salt clouds in a cold celestial object\u2014a phenomenon scientists had theorized over 15 years ago.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Major Frameworks\/Components:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Spectroscopy: Breaking down the object’s dispersed light into component colors to detect exotic chemistry, including water vapor, methane, carbon dioxide, and ammonia.<\/p>\n

Astrophysical Modeling: Reconstructing the atmosphere via simulation, which demonstrated that accounting for salt clouds was mathematically and physically necessary to match the JWST data.<\/p>\n

Stellar Glare Reduction: Advanced data-processing techniques employed to separate the exceedingly faint thermal emissions of the companion from the intense light of its sun-like host star.<\/p>\n

Branch of Science: Astrophysics<\/a>, Planetary Science<\/a>, and Exoplanetology.<\/p>\n

Future Application: The data-processing techniques and atmospheric models pioneered in this study will be heavily utilized to analyze other cold, faint celestial objects. This methodology sets a precedent for discovering even colder cloud formations, such as ammonia ice, in distant planetary systems.<\/p>\n

Why It Matters: This marks the first time salt clouds have proven critical to explaining a celestial object’s spectrum, fundamentally altering how astrophysicists must account for cloud cover in future atmospheric models. Furthermore, the high metallicity of the atmosphere provides crucial new clues for understanding whether the object formed as a traditional planet or a failed small star.<\/p>\n

Discovered in 2013, the Pink Planet orbits a sunlike star located 57 light-years from Earth. At roughly 25 times the mass of Jupiter, it sits near the fuzzy boundary between giant planets and brown dwarfs. So, astronomers refer to it as a \u201cplanetary-mass companion,\u201d meaning that it\u2019s a planet-sized object orbiting a star. Illustration courtesy of NASA\/Goddard Space Flight Center.<\/p>\n

Northwestern University\u2013led astronomers have discovered salty skies surrounding the universe\u2019s famous \u201cPink Planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more than a decade, the ancient, rosy-hazed world kept astronomers guessing. One of the coldest known planetary-mass companions ever directly imaged, the elusive object is too faint for astronomers to dissect its light from Earth. But new observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reveal an atmosphere filled with exotic chemistry\u2014and salty clouds unlike anything seen before.<\/p>\n

The observations provide some of the first direct evidence for salt clouds in a cold object\u2019s atmosphere, a phenomenon scientists theorized more than 15 years ago. The discovery also marks an important step toward studying increasingly cold objects, which are too dim to examine with ground-based telescopes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Pink Planet is the coldest companion ever discovered using ground-based instruments,\u201d said Northwestern\u2019s Aneesh Baburaj, who led the study. \u201cMany teams all around the world performed follow-up observations to study its light, but it was too faint for ground-based instruments. That made it a perfect target for JWST. When we finally obtained its spectrum, it immediately looked interesting. But once we started digging deeper into the data, we realized it was not like anything we have analyzed before.\u201d<\/p>\n

An expert on exoplanets, Baburaj is a postdoctoral associate at Northwestern\u2019s Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA). This work was conducted in collaboration with scientists at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), including Marshall Perrin, who devised the observing program for this object. Perrin is a member of the JWST Telescope Scientist Team, which contributed to the telescope\u2019s design and is responsible for its current day-to-day operations.<\/p>\n

Old and Cold<\/p>\n

Discovered in 2013, the Pink Planet (dubbed GJ504b) orbits a sunlike star located 57 light-years from Earth. Despite its nickname, astronomers are unsure if it\u2019s a planet at all. At roughly 25 times the mass of Jupiter, GJ504b sits near the fuzzy boundary between giant planets and brown dwarfs. So, astronomers refer to it as a \u201cplanetary-mass companion,\u201d meaning that it\u2019s a planet-sized object orbiting a star.<\/p>\n

Further complicating the mystery, repeated attempts to study it with ground-based telescopes have fallen short. While most directly imaged exoplanets are closer to 1,000 to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, GJ504b is just 550 degrees Fahrenheit (290 degrees Celsius)\u2014roughly the temperature of a bread-baking oven.<\/p>\n

The companion\u2019s age is responsible for its chilly temperature, Baburaj said. Although they are born blistering hot, giant planets cool as they age. And the new study estimates GJ504b is between 2.5 billion and 4 billion years old.<\/p>\n

Using the JWST, Baburaj and his team captured GJ504b\u2019s faint light. Then, they used advanced data-processing techniques to strip away glare from its much brighter host star. This combination finally revealed the companion\u2019s spectrum, a graph that breaks down dispersed light into component colors. Each color represents a different element. So, by analyzing an object\u2019s spectrum, scientists can uncover the presence of specific elements and molecules.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past, other astronomers observed the companion for an entire night with some of the biggest telescopes in the world to obtain a spectrum,\u201d Baburaj said. \u201cAnd they could not see the object. With JWST, our entire observation took around two hours, and we were successful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Famous World Comes into Focus<\/p>\n

The data revealed a rich mix of chemicals, including water vapor, methane, carbon dioxide, ammonia, and other molecules. To reconstruct the companion, the researchers fed these data into an astrophysical model. But something didn\u2019t add up. The companion\u2019s simulated atmosphere only matched the observations if it contained unusual, physically implausible features. When the researchers added clouds to the model, the unusual characteristics vanished. Salt clouds likely veiled the atmosphere\u2019s deeper layers, shaping the light that reached JWST.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe ran simulations with clouds, and the results aligned with what we know about cold planets,\u201d Baburaj said. \u201cWe tried three different types of clouds, and salt clouds fit best. When we accounted for salt clouds, it subdued the signature of molecules hidden deeper in the companion\u2019s atmosphere. Then, the results became physically possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spectrum also suggested that GJ504b is unusually rich in heavy elements, or metals. However, the mystery of the object\u2019s formation persists, with current data suggesting it could have formed either like a planet or a small star.<\/p>\n

Baburaj says the techniques used in the study could help unravel other mysteries surrounding cold, faint planets. Jupiter, for example, hosts clouds made of ammonia ice. While those cloud types remain beyond the reach of current observations, the detection of GJ504b\u2019s salt clouds suggests astronomers are getting closer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first time we\u2019ve found that salt clouds are critical to explaining the spectrum of an object,\u201d Baburaj said. \u201cIt\u2019s a good reminder to account for clouds in our models.\u201d<\/p>\n

Funding: The study was supported by NASA.<\/p>\n

Published in journal:\u00a0Astronomical Journal<\/p>\n

Title:\u00a0JWST-TST High Contrast: First Direct Spectroscopy of GJ 504 b Reveals Clouds and Possible Metal Enrichment<\/a><\/p>\n

Authors:\u00a0Aneesh Baburaj, Jean-Baptiste Ruffio, Marshall Perrin, Jerry W. Xuan, William O. Balmer, Yayaati Chachan, Quinn M. Konopacky, Travis S. Barman, Mathilde M\u00e2lin, Kielan K. W. Hoch, Emily Rickman, Kimberly Ward-Duong, Laurent Pueyo, Julien H. Girard, Isabel Rebollido, Alexis Bidot, Christine Chen, Kadin Worthen, Cicero Lu, Jens Kammerer, Roeland P. van der Marel, Nikole K. Lewis, Jeff Valenti, Sara Seager, Chris Stark, R\u00e9mi Soummer, Jay Anderson, Charles-Philippe Lajoie, Mark Clampin, and C. Matt Mountain<\/p>\n

Source\/Credit:\u00a0Northwestern University |\u00a0Amanda Morris<\/a><\/p>\n

Edited by: Scientific Frontline<\/a><\/p>\n

Reference Number: asph061826_01<\/p>\n

Privacy Policy<\/a> | Terms of Service<\/a> | Contact Us<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Discovered in 2013, the Pink Planet orbits a sun-like star located 57 light-years from Earth. At roughly 25…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[61,60,82,247],"class_list":["post-507494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}