James Webb, the space observatory named after him, made two rare observations; directly spotted two exoplanets in white dwarf systems. This is exoticism squared, meaning receiving light from planets outside the solar system that have managed to survive the death of their stars.

The article about the discovery has not yet been reviewed and is available on the website arXiv. The candidate exoplanets were detected in the mid-infrared range by the Webb MIRI instrument when white dwarfs WD 1202-232 and WD 2105-82 entered the telescope’s field of view. One of the potential exoplanets is located about 11.5 times farther from the star than Earth is from the Sun. The second candidate is even further away from his star; at a distance of 34.5 times the distance between our planet and the Sun.

The masses of both exoplanets are still unknown. New observations are needed to determine. Rough estimates suggest that each of the outer planets could be 1 to 7 times more massive than Jupiter, the largest planet in the Solar System. Until the mass of these objects is determined, they will be considered exoplanet candidates. Their previous orbits should have been much closer to the stars. It probably has to do with where the orbits of Saturn and Jupiter are currently. As stars in these systems died and became red giants, their expanding envelopes burned away, pushing everything into Mars’ orbit, which could cause the orbits of the giant exoplanets to change.

When we look at the WD 1202-232 and WD 2105-82 systems, we are actually witnessing the melting of the Solar System, about 5 billion years later, when the Sun will pass through the red giant phase and shed its outer shell, leaving a cooling core. There is a white dwarf at the center of the system.

Meanwhile, 25% to 50% of observed white dwarfs show increased amounts of metal content, according to astronomy classification – chemicals heavier than hydrogen and helium. On the example of observed systems with surviving giant planets, it can be assumed that they drop asteroids and comets into the cores of stars, which are sources of contamination of stellar remnants with metals. Therefore, giant planets can be considered common bodies in star systems.

Another interesting observation of the exoplanet candidates was that they were much hotter than expected in a certain range of the infrared spectrum. This allows us to hope that additional heat may come from satellites, for example. So we have the chance to discover an exomoon for the first time. In short, very promising objects for observation have been discovered and “Webb” will definitely pay attention to them.