Science is progressing through data that does not fit the current understanding. At least that was his famous Thomas Koon theory of the structure of the scientific revolution. Therefore, scientists should welcome new data that challenges an understanding of how the universe works. Using James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) data, a recent paper available in Arxiv’s preprint may just have found data that can do that. It looked at the exoplanets around the millisecond pulsar and found that its atmosphere was made up almost entirely of pure carbon.
This type of pulsar, PSR J2322-2650, is known as the “Black Widow” system because it promotes high-energy explosions by stealing material from adjacent stars. In this case, it is possible that the adjacent star has degraded to a companion planet of “Hot Jupiter” orbiting the proneutron star every 7.8 hours. The typical “black widow” formation process involves two steps. One is a neutron star (also a pulsar in this case) steals the material, and in that second step it blows up the companion with the gamma radiation of the companion, tearing the outer layer of most companion stars, and constructing a Jupiter-sized exoplanet into helium.
The exoplanet around the PSR J2322-2650 is known as the PSR J2322-2650B and fits the description of a Jupiter-sized planet that is thought to have the same density as expected if it is composed primarily of helium. However, the atmosphere is different from other Black Widow companions we’ve seen before. According to spectroscopic reports from JWST, its atmosphere is composed primarily of elemental carbon, taking the form of tricarbon (C3) or dicarbon (C2).
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Typically, these types of elements are found in comet tails and in actual flames here on Earth. Their presence in the planet’s atmosphere, especially in such abundant quantities, is new to science.
Related: Will James Webb’s Telescope lead us into an alien life? Scientists say we are closer than ever.
Another interesting thing about the planet’s atmosphere is the difference between the day and night sides. The dayside, where the planet is always facing pulsars as it is locked attractively, temperatures exceed 2000 C and have very distinct chemical features. However, on the night side there was little functionality. It suggests that the side of the planet is covered with soot or similar ones without different features.
To further demonstrate how strange the planet’s atmosphere is, researchers calculated the ratio of carbon to oxygen, carbon to nitrogen. The C/O ratio exceeded 100 and the C/N ratio exceeded 10,000. In comparison, the Earth’s C/O ratio is .01 and the C/N ratio is 40. Obviously, this planet has a lot of carbon.
And that doesn’t fit well with the model of the way scientists thought the planet should form. As part of the “Black Widow” process, the planet’s outer layer should have been sucked up by a companion star or burned out by the radiation of that star. The fact that such a rich carbon atmosphere still exists remains a mystery. There are processes that can create such an atmosphere, such as the merger of white wetlands between “carbon stars,” but still cannot explain how the planet’s C/O ratio has increased.
However, other aspects of the planet are consistent with general theory. The circulation model predicts that rapidly rotating planets such as the PSR J2322-2650B will have strong westerly winds. JWST data show that the hottest part of the planet is about 12 degrees west of the central, providing the first observational evidence of this Western phenomenon.
In other words, the PSR J2322-2650B is contradictory. Size and shape suitable for a typical black widow pulsar system. That window circulation fits well into our best models. But the atmosphere is completely different and scientists need to go back to theory and find ways to mean new data. While they are busy doing it, JWST continues to scan the sky for more anomalies that could drive the next scientific revolution.
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