"For the first time, scientists have directly detected molecules in a Frisbee of gas and dust swirling around an alien gas-giant planet. I didn't think this was possible, says astronomer Sierra Grant of Carnegie Science in Washington, D.C. Typically such a faint signal would be invisible in the glare of a star. Grant and her co-author Gabriele Cugno of the University of Zurich, who published the results recently in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, think the carbon-rich disk is a lunar nursery."
"Grant and Cugno used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to pick out the infrared glow from the disk of gas and dust encircling a Goliath world called CT Cha b. Spotting light cast by a planetlet alone a disk around oneis like making out a firefly against a floodlight. It's easier if the firefly is enormous and far away from the light."
JWST infrared observations revealed molecular signatures in a disk of gas and dust encircling the massive planet CT Cha b. The planet measures about 14 to 24 Jupiter masses and orbits its star at roughly 17 times Neptune's distance from the Sun. The detected disk shows carbon-rich chemistry and is interpreted as a likely lunar nursery where moons may be forming. Previous indications of accretion motivated targeted JWST spectroscopy to separate the faint disk glow from the host star. Follow-up observations aim to survey more systems and search for gaps carved by nascent moons.
Read at www.scientificamerican.com
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