IIT-Kanpur assistant professor part of team that discovered exoplanet
KANPUR: An international team of astronomers, including assistant professor of department of Space, Planetary & Astronomical Sciences & Engineering (SPASE), IIT-Kanpur Prashant Pathak has discovered a giant exoplanet orbiting a nearby star similar to our Sun.
The IIT-Kanpur on Thursday said that the exoplanet named Epsilon Indi Ab, or Eps Ind Ab for short, is classified as a ‘super-Jupiter’ due to its mass which exceeds that of Jupiter by at least six times.Eps Ind Ab is the first-ever mature exoplanet (a planet beyond our solar system) to be discovered using direct imaging technique, it said. The details of the discovery and the research behind it has been published in the multidisciplinary science journal, Nature.
“Using the James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWSTs) Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI), an international team of astronomers has directly imaged a new exoplanet orbiting the K5V-type star Epsilon Indi A (also known as HD 209100 or HI). Direct imaging of a nearby mature exoplanet marks a significant milestone in the realm of space exploration ,” it said.
The newly discovered planet is located 12 light-years away from the Earth and is cold, with temperature of about -1°C (30°F). Its orbit is also immense, circling its star at a distance 28 times greater than the distance between the Earth and the Sun.
Elisabeth Matthews, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany and the lead author of the research articlesaid, “Previous studies had correctly identified a planet in this system but underestimated mass and orbital separation”. With the help of the JWST, the team was able to set the record straight.
“This discovery is a major milestone in exoplanet research and sets the stage for future discoveries, bringing us one step closer to uncovering the mysteries of planetary systems beyond our own,” said director, IIT- Kanpur Manindra Agrawal. He said, “Dr Prashant Pathak’s work in collaboration with the international experts highlights the global contributions of IIT-K in advancing our understanding of space.”
Assistant prof Prashant Pathak said, “The planet’s atmosphere appears to have an unusual composition that indicates a high metal content and a different carbon-to-oxygen ratio . This opens up fascinating questions about its formation and evolution. By studying Eps Ind Ab and other nearby exoplanets, we hope to gain a deeper understanding of planetary formation, atmospheric composition, and the potential for life beyond our solar system.”
“Previous attempts to study the planet were not successful as the planet’s orbital period is around 200 years and the data from short-term observations was not sufficient to accurately determine the planet’s properties. Hence the team decided to follow a direct imaging approach. The team used JWSTs MIRI camera equipped with a coronagraph, to block the starlight, effectively creating an artificial eclipse. This technique enables detecting faint signals around bright objects, similar to observing solar corona during an eclipse,” he said.
“Our next goal is to obtain spectra for a detailed fingerprint of the planet’s climatology and chemical composition,” said Thomas Henning, Emeritus Director at MPIA, co-PI of the MIRI instrument, and a co-author of the underlying article. “In the long run, we hope to also observe other nearby planetary systems to hunt for cold gas giants .”