{"id":629279,"date":"2026-10-13T11:46:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T11:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/629279\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T11:46:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T11:46:15","slug":"alien-world-captured-in-james-webb-space-telescope-image-is-one-of-the-strangest-ever-seen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/629279\/","title":{"rendered":"Alien world captured in James Webb Space Telescope image is one of the strangest ever seen"},"content":{"rendered":"

The James Webb Space Telescope has captured an image of a planet orbiting a star 60 lightyears away, that astronomers say is one of the strangest they’ve ever seen.<\/p>\n

The exoplanet<\/a>, 14 Herculis c, is one of two known worlds orbiting star 14 Herculis, and is the coldest exoplanet ever imaged to date.<\/p>\n

\"Artist'sCredit: dottedhippo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

So far, around 6,000 exoplanets<\/a> have been discovered and confirmed, but only a small number of those have been directly imaged.<\/p>\n

What’s more, most of the exoplanets that have been directly imaged are very hot; hundreds or even thousands of degrees Fahrenheit.<\/p>\n

Yet data suggests 14 Herculis c, which is 7 times heavier than Jupiter in our Solar System, is about \u20133\u00b0C (26\u00b0F).<\/p>\n

\"JamesJames Webb Space Telescope direct image of exoplanet 14 Herculis c. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, William Balmer (JHU), Daniella Bardalez Gagliuffi (Amherst College)
\nExpanding our catalogue of alien worlds<\/p>\n

“The colder an exoplanet, the harder it is to image, so this is a totally new regime of study that Webb has unlocked with its extreme sensitivity in the infrared,” says William Balmer, co-first author of the study and graduate student at Johns Hopkins University.<\/p>\n

“We are now able to add to the catalog of not just hot, young exoplanets imaged, but older exoplanets that are far colder than we\u2019ve directly seen before Webb.”<\/p>\n

Webb\u2019s image of 14 Herculis c reveals it’s unlike other exoplanets that have been studied in detail with both Webb and other observatories.<\/p>\n

Central star 14 Herculis is similar to our Sun in age and temperature, but a little less massive and cooler.<\/p>\n

There are two known planets aroud the star: 14 Herculis b is closer to the star, but in Webb’s image it’s covered up by the coronagraph, an instrument that blocks out the bright star so the much dimmer exoplanets can be seen.<\/p>\n

\"Artist'sArtist’s impression of the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: ESA, NASA, S. Beckwith (STScI) and the HUDF Team, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems \/ STScI \/ ATG medialab
\nWeird worlds around 14 Herculis<\/p>\n

The two exoplanets around 14 Hercules don\u2019t orbit the star on the same plane, like the planets in our own Solar System.<\/p>\n

Instead, they cross each other like an \u2018X\u2019, because the orbital planes of the two planets are inclined to one another at an angle of about 40 degrees.<\/p>\n

This means the planets are having a gravitational tug of war as they orbit the star.<\/p>\n

Never before has a direct image been captured of such a strange orbital tango.<\/p>\n

Astronomers say the unusual orbits could indicate a third planet was ejected from the system early in its formation, leaving the two remaining planets on an irregular orbital course.<\/p>\n

“The early evolution of our own Solar System was dominated by the movement and pull of our own gas giants,” says Balmer.<\/p>\n

“They threw around asteroids and rearranged other planets. Here, we are seeing the aftermath of a more violent planetary crime scene.<\/p>\n

“It reminds us that something similar could have happened to our own Solar System, and that the outcomes for small planets like Earth are often dictated by much larger forces.”<\/p>\n

Webb’s investigations of 14 Herculis c<\/p>\n

Webb\u2019s new data is giving researchers further insights into not just the temperature of 14 Herculis c, but other details about the planet\u2019s orbit and atmosphere.<\/p>\n

And Webb has been able to refine what is known about its orbit, revealing the planet swings out 1.4 billion miles from the host star in a highly elliptical, or egg-shaped orbit, closer-in than previous estimates. <\/p>\n

For perspective, that’s about 15 times farther than Earth orbits the Sun<\/a>, putting 14 Herculis c between Saturn and Uranus in our Solar System.<\/p>\n

Webb measured the planet\u2019s brightness at 4.4 microns which, when combined with the known mass and age, tells astronomers what’s going on in its atmosphere.<\/p>\n

“If a planet of a certain mass formed 4 billion years ago, then cooled over time because it doesn’t have a source of energy keeping it warm, we can predict how hot it should be today,” says Daniella C. Bardalez Gagliuffi of Amherst College, co-first author on the paper.<\/p>\n

“Added information, like the perceived brightness in direct imaging, would in theory support this estimate of the planet\u2019s temperature.”<\/p>\n

14 Herculis c’s brightness is fainter than expected for an object of this mass and age, the team say, and this is because of something called ‘carbon disequilibrium chemistry’.<\/p>\n

“This exoplanet is so cold, the best comparisons we have that are well-studied are the coldest brown dwarfs,” Bardalez Gagliuffi says.<\/p>\n

“In those objects, like with 14 Herculis c, we see carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide existing at temperatures where we should see methane.<\/p>\n

“This is explained by churning in the atmosphere. Molecules made at warmer temperatures in the lower atmosphere are brought to the cold, upper atmosphere very quickly.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The James Webb Space Telescope has captured an image of a planet orbiting a star 60 lightyears away,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-629279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}