Space is full of unsolved mysteries, and a team using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope recently came across a puzzling mystery. “I remember after receiving the data, our collective reaction was ‘What is this?’ “This is extremely different from what we expected,” said study co-author Peter Gao of the Carnegie Earth and Planets Laboratory in Washington.
Researchers found an exoplanet named PSR J2322-2650b, which orbits a small, dense star that emits electromagnetic radiation called a pulsar. They are an example of a black widow system, where a rapidly rotating pulsar is paired with a smaller celestial body. A black widow pair is not unusual, but this pair raises questions about how exoplanets originally formed.
The exoplanet’s proximity to the pulsar and its intense gravitational pull have distorted it into the shape of an oblong lemon. More unusually, PSR J2322-2650b also has a unique atmosphere consisting mostly of helium and carbon. “Instead of finding the usual molecules we expect to see on an exoplanet – like water, methane and carbon dioxide – we saw molecular carbon,” said principal investigator Michael Zhang of the University of Chicago. Given its strange environment, the team isn’t sure how the exoplanet formed. “It’s very hard to imagine how you get this extremely carbon-rich structure. It seems to defy every known formation mechanism,” Zhang said. For now, we’ll look at it as another mystery of the universe.
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