Even JWST can’t see through this planet’s massive haze

Even JWST can’t see through this planet’s massive haze

Kepler-51d is a giant, ultra-light “super-puff” planet wrapped in an unusually thick haze that’s blocking scientists from seeing what it’s made of. Observations from JWST revealed that this haze may be one of the largest ever detected, possibly stretching as wide as Earth itself. The planet’s low density and close orbit don’t match existing models of how gas giants form or survive. Now, researchers are left with more questions than answers about how such a strange world came to be.


The ultra-low-density planet Kepler-51d is surrounded by the thickest layer of haze found on a planet yet, according to a new study that used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to take a deeper look at the “super-puff” planet. The haze makes discerning the chemical elements in the planet’s atmosphere — and any clues to the planet’s formation — challenging. Credit: NASA, ESA, and L. Hustak, J. Olmsted, D. Player and F. Summers (STScI)


A newly studied exoplanet, Kepler-51d, is wrapped in an unusually dense layer of haze that may be hiding both what it is made of and how it formed. Using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a team led by Penn State researchers took a closer look at this so-called "super-puff" planet, which already challenges standard ideas of how planets develop. What they found made things even more puzzling. The haze surrounding the planet appears to be the thickest ever detected on a world, making it extremely difficult to identify the chemical makeup of its atmosphere or trace its origins.


The findings were published March 16 in the Astronomical Journal.

A Cotton Candy-Like Planetary System

Kepler-51 is a star located about 2,615 light years away in the constellation Cygnus. It hosts four known planets, at least three of which belong to a rare class of ultra-low-density worlds known as super-puffs. These planets are similar in size to Saturn but have only a few times the mass of Earth. Among them, Kepler-51d stands out as both the coolest and the least dense.

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