NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Discovers New Exoplanet in Beta Pictoris System

Key facts

• NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) discovered a new giant exoplanet, Beta Pictoris d, in the Beta Pictoris system.
• The planet was identified using moderate-resolution spectroscopy, marking the first discovery of a directly imaged exoplanet primarily through atmospheric chemical signatures.
• Beta Pictoris d is at least twice the mass of Jupiter and orbits its star at about 30 astronomical units, comparable to Neptune's position in the Solar System.
• The system, located 63 light-years away and about 23 million years old, now hosts three known directly imaged planets: Beta Pictoris b, c, and d.
• JWST's Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) detected carbon monoxide absorption lines, and subsequent observations with the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) confirmed water vapour and methane in the atmosphere.
• The planet had remained undetected because it is embedded in a bright debris disk; JWST's spectroscopic technique filtered out dust by isolating molecular signatures unique to a planetary atmosphere.
• The findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, and a separate imaging study using the Very Large Telescope and JWST's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) independently confirmed the exoplanet.