An enormous world orbiting a sun-like star just 57 light-years away in space may have a pink hue and a sky filled with clouds of salt.
Astronomers used NASA‘s James Webb Space Telescope to study a distant object called GJ 504 b, and for the first time, detailed in a new study, they captured its light in enough detail to study its atmosphere directly rather than relying on rough brightness calculations.
“Distant object” is about as precise of a label as it gets for this thing. Despite the Pink Planet nickname, astronomers aren’t even sure what it is. Some studies have suggested it might be a giant exoplanet, while others argue it could be a brown dwarf, a sort of failed star too small to generate its own nuclear power. For now, astronomers are comfortable calling it a “planetary-mass companion.”
The problem is that GJ 504 b is cold, faint, and difficult to study. But with Webb, researchers finally had a chance to gather a spectrum, a technique that splits the world’s light into its component colors. The presence or absence of different shades can reveal the mix of elements in its atmosphere.
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