Why Is Discovering Exoplanets Important?
1Q, 1A — where we ask one question and an expert gives one answer
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NASA recently announced the discovery of a gas giant planet orbiting around a young, nearby star, Beta Pictoris ("young" being 23 million years old and "nearby" being 63 light years from Earth). The gas giant, known as Beta Pictoris d, is in a star system with two other known planets (Beta Pictoris b and c).
The discovery was made with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope as part of an observing program led by University of California San Diego Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics Quinn Konopacky, research scientist Jean-Baptiste Ruffio and postdoctoral scholar Aidan Gibbs.
Beta Pictoris d was big news, covered in outlets around the globe. But why? Aside from the thrill of finding something new, does this discovery hold deeper importance? Gibbs, who is lead author of the paper on the discovery, explains why finding exoplanets, which orbit around stars other than our sun, can help us better understand our own solar system and home planet.
Why is discovering exoplanets important, and what can it tell us about our own solar system?
Finding and studying exoplanets matters because it gives us context for our own solar system and life on Earth. A major question we are trying to answer is whether our solar system is exceptionally rare or exceptionally common. That ultimately helps us answer the question of how likely it is that there may be life on another planet somewhere in our galaxy or the universe. Gas giant exoplanets, like Beta Pictoris d, can have a major influence on the stability and habitability of planetary systems. Even though giant planets aren't habitable themselves, they have a large gravitational influence. That means their presence can potentially help or hinder the habitability of Earth-like planets in the same system.
Aidan Gibbs is a postdoctoral scholar in Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics Quinn Konopacky's group.
Giant planets also help us understand more broadly how planetary systems form and evolve. Looking at the Beta Pictoris system, in a sense we are seeing a bulked-up version of what our solar system may have looked like at a very young age. The Beta Pictoris planets are much more massive than those in our solar system, but even so, we see a hierarchy of outer giant planets that is roughly similar to the hierarchy of giant planets in our solar system. That gives us a small hint that maybe our solar system isn't that unusual. There may very well also be terrestrial planets in the interior of the Beta Pictoris system that are still too small to be detected with current telescopes. Future telescopes like the Habitable Worlds Observatory, planned in the coming decades, may be able to image some of these smaller rocky planets using observational techniques we are currently developing with the James Webb Space Telescope and other observatories.
Read more about “NASA’s Webb Discovers Hidden Planet in Famous Star System” on NASA’s website.
Read more news about: Physical Sciences, Space
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