All posts tagged: red dwarf stars

Astronomers map the climate of Earth-like exoplanets for the first time

Astronomers map the climate of Earth-like exoplanets for the first time

Published by Jenni Sidey

A pair of scorched worlds circling the red dwarf TRAPPIST-1 now offer one of the clearest looks yet at what life may be up against around the most common stars in the Milky Way. Using the James Webb Space Telescope, an international team that included researchers from the University of Bern and the University of Geneva has, for the first time, mapped the climate of rocky exoplanets with masses similar to Earth. Their target was not a giant gas planet or a bloated world with an easy-to-read atmosphere, but two small rocky planets in the famous TRAPPIST-1 system, known as TRAPPIST-1b and TRAPPIST-1c. What they found was stark. The two worlds seem to swing between blistering daylight and brutal cold, with day-to-night temperature differences topping 500 degrees Celsius. That kind of contrast points to a simple conclusion: neither planet appears to have a dense atmosphere capable of moving heat from one side to the other. The result, published in Nature Astronomy, sharpens one of the biggest questions in exoplanet science. Rocky planets around red dwarf …

Giant planet that shouldn’t exist is forcing astronomers to rethink planetary science

Giant planet that shouldn’t exist is forcing astronomers to rethink planetary science

Published by Jenni Sidey

An exoplanet, TOI-5205 b, which is almost as large as Jupiter, orbits a small red star. By many estimates, this red star should not have been able to form it due to the star’s mass. The fact that TOI-5205 b exists as it does at all raises intriguing questions about how it came to be. In addition, the James Webb Space Telescope has confirmed that this planet may be even stranger than previously thought. Specifically, the atmosphere of TOI-5205 b is deficient in heavy elements relative to the hosting star. This discrepancy suggests that the outer layers of the planet and its deep interior have not developed in the same way through the formation process. The findings from the study of TOI-5205 b were recently published in The Astronomical Journal. The research was led by Caleb Cañas, a NASA Goddard Space Flight Center scientist, along with an international team of researchers. This team included Shubham Kanodia, a Carnegie Science astronomer who contributed to the confirmation of the stellar companion in 2023, and who was also …