The Earth is not a perfect sphere. The rotation of our planet creates a slight curvature at the equator, making it about 0.3% wider there than from pole to pole.
But that’s nothing compared to this PSR J2322-2650b, a Jupiter-mass object recently studied by the James Webb Space Telescope. The equatorial diameter of this planet is about 38% larger than its polar diameter, giving the world the strange appearance of a lemon and a very peculiar atmosphere.
“It is the most elastic planet that we have confirmed to be elastic,” said Michael Zhang, an exoplanet scientist at the University of Chicago and lead author of a paper describing the planet published Tuesday in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
PSR J2322-2650b was discovered in 2011 from the Parkes radio telescope in Australia. It’s found more than 2000 light years from Earth. The world immediately attracted interest as a Jupiter-sized gas giant orbiting a pulsar, a dense, rapidly rotating star formed from a supernova. Pulsars are so called because they emit beams of radiation from their poles. The planet is just a million miles from the star and completes an orbit in about eight hours. It is the only known gas giant orbiting a pulsar.
This proximity gives the planet its unusual shapebecause the star’s gravity pulls on it. “It’s close enough that materials are being passed from the object to the pulsar,” said Peter Gao, an exoplanet scientist at the Carnegie Institute for Science in Washington, DC, and author of the paper. “There’s a peak, like a point, where the material leaves the planet and spirals in.”
Using the Webb Telescope’s infrared capabilities, the team was able to study the planet’s atmosphere. This was the first time this had been done on a planet orbiting a pulsar. These observations gave clues to the strange shape of the world. And they also revealed something extremely strange: The planet lacks hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogenElements found on other planets, including gas giants. Instead, It consists mainly of helium and molecular carbon. “We have never seen a world dominated by helium and carbon before,” said Dr. Gao.
Its carbon atmosphere could emerge “Graphite Clouds”said Dr. Zhang, and at the core diamonds. Storm streaks would cover the planet’s lemon-like, W-shaped exteriorwhile it is most likely red in color due to dust and soot-like particles formed by carbon.
“It’s kind of strange and peculiar,” said Emily Rauscher, a theoretical astrophysicist at the University of Michigan who was not involved in the work. “It didn’t form like a normal planet.”
The strange properties of PSR J2322-2650b could indicate this This is actually not a planet, but rather the remnant of a star that orbited the pulsar and was slowly swallowed up. “We tend to have a stellar scenario,” said Dr. Gao and possibly made it into a type of system known as the Black Widow Pulsar, in which we see a star being engulfed by a pulsar.
These could be the last moments of such a system, as the PSR J2322-2650b will soon be completely used up. “It would have lost 99.9% of its mass, and we only discovered it at the very end,” explained Dr. Gao.
Alternatively, according to Dr. According to Zhang, it may also be “an entirely new type of object for which we have no name,” with PSR J2322-2650b remaining in a stable orbit around its pulsar for billions of years rather than being immediately devoured. He hopes to search for more such worlds in the future to find out.
“I hope we have a brother to compare this object to,” he said. “If it continues to lose mass, we had to be very lucky to see it in its final breath before it disappeared.”
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