New Delhi: The James Webb Space Telescope has turned its sensitive infrared gaze towards an exoplanet designated as Kepler-167 e, a gas giant at a distance of 1,115 lightyears from the Earth, discovered in 2016. This gas giant is 0.9 times the size of Jupiter, and contains about 1.01 times as the mass of Jupiter, making it a close analogue to the more familiar gas giant in our own Solar System. The gas giant orbits the host star once every 2.9 years, and most importantly, transits the host star, or moves across it, from the vantage point of the Earth. This allows sensitive astronomical instruments to potentially pick out any exomoons in orbit around the exoplanets.
The exoplanet Kepler-167 e is at a distance of 1.8 AU from the host star, which is a much closer orbit in comparison Jupiter in our own solar system, which orbits the Sun at 5.2 AU. However, the transit method used to discover exoplanets favours the discovery of large worlds in tight orbits around their host stars, as a result of which we know of a disproportionate amount of Hot Jupiters, gas giants with extreme temperatures, and consequently atmospheres. Less than a 1,000 of the 5,500 known exoplanets are terrestrial or rocky, and while there are know confirmed exomoons, there are a handful of exomoon candidates.
The challenges of detecting exomoons
The potential detection of exomoons are at the very limits of the capabilities of even the most sophisticated and sensitive astronomical instruments. The James Webb Space Telescope is one of the few deep space observatories in the world that is capable of detecting exomoons. With the observation conducted between 24 and 26 October, the team of researchers with David Kipping hope to discover the satellite system of Kepler-167 e as well as measure its oblateness, or the extent to which the gas giant has been squished by its rotation.
