{"id":645912,"date":"2025-12-21T08:44:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T08:44:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/645912\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T08:44:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T08:44:19","slug":"space-breakthrough-as-giant-lemon-shaped-planet-that-defies-explanation-discovered-by-scientists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/645912\/","title":{"rendered":"Space breakthrough as giant ‘lemon-shaped’ planet that ‘defies explanation’ discovered by scientists"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope has identified an extraordinary gas giant that scientists say defies all conventional understanding of planetary formation.<\/p>\n

The Jupiter-sized world, designated PSR J23222650b, possesses a distinctive lemon shape and an atmosphere composed of carbon and helium – a combination never before observed on any exoplanet.<\/p>\n

Within its superheated upper atmosphere, clouds of soot drift through the extreme conditions.<\/p>\n

Deep within the planet’s core, these carbon particles condense under immense pressure to form diamonds.<\/p>\n

\"PSR<\/p>\n

The Jupiter-sized world possesses a distinctive lemon shape and an atmosphere composed of carbon and helium<\/p>\n

| <\/p>\n

NASA<\/p>\n

What makes this discovery particularly remarkable is the planet’s host.<\/p>\n

Rather than orbiting a conventional star similar to our Sun, PSR J23222650b circles a pulsar – the incredibly dense remnant of a collapsed star that packs solar mass into a city-sized sphere.<\/p>\n

Situated some 750 lightyears from Earth, this pulsar subjects its companion world to a relentless barrage of gamma radiation whilst simultaneously warping it through gravitational forces into its unusual citrus-like form.<\/p>\n

The result is one of the most extreme thermal environments ever recorded on a planetary body.<\/p>\n

\"PSR<\/p>\n

The result is one of the most extreme thermal environments ever recorded on a planetary body<\/p>\n

| <\/p>\n

NASA<\/p>\n

Daytime temperatures soar to approximately 2,030\u00b0C, whilst the night side cools to around 650\u00b0C – a staggering differential of nearly 1,400 degrees.<\/p>\n

The planet’s proximity to its stellar remnant is equally extraordinary, orbiting at merely one million miles distance.<\/p>\n

By comparison, Earth sits roughly 100 million miles from the Sun.<\/p>\n

This tight orbit means a complete year on PSR J23222650b lasts just 7.8 hours as the world hurtles around its host at tremendous velocity.<\/p>\n

\"James<\/p>\n

The remarkable exoplanet was identified by the James Webb Space Telescope <\/p>\n

| ESA<\/p>\n

Among approximately 6,000 known exoplanets, this remains the sole gas giant discovered orbiting a neutron star.<\/p>\n

The atmospheric composition represents what researchers describe as an entirely new category of planetary atmosphere.<\/p>\n

Dr Peter Gao, of the Carnegie Earth and Planets Laboratory and study co-author, recalled the team’s initial reaction: “I remember after we got the data down, our collective reaction was ‘What the heck is this?’ It’s extremely different from what we expected.”<\/p>\n

Rather than detecting typical exoplanetary molecules such as water, methane, and carbon dioxide, the researchers found molecular carbon in the forms C3 and C2.<\/p>\n

Dr Michael Zhang, of the University of Chicago, stated: “This is a new type of planet atmosphere that nobody has ever seen before.”<\/p>\n

The finding is particularly perplexing because at such extreme temperatures, carbon would normally bond with other atmospheric atoms.<\/p>\n

Molecular carbon can only dominate when oxygen and nitrogen are virtually absent – a condition observed in none of the roughly 150 exoplanets previously analysed in detail.<\/p>\n

The planet’s origins remain a complete enigma to the scientific community.<\/p>\n

Dr Zhang explained: “Did this thing form like a normal planet? No, because the composition is entirely different.”<\/p>\n

Formation through stripping a star’s outer layers has also been dismissed, as stellar nuclear reactions do not produce pure carbon.<\/p>\n

“It’s very hard to imagine how you get this extremely carbon-enriched composition. It seems to rule out every known formation mechanism,” Dr Zhang added.<\/p>\n

The team’s leading hypothesis suggests carbon and oxygen may have crystallised within the planet’s interior during cooling, with pure carbon crystals rising to mix with helium.<\/p>\n

Yet Professor Roger Romani, of Stanford University, acknowledged this explanation remains incomplete.<\/p>\n

He said: “Something has to happen to keep the oxygen and nitrogen away. <\/p>\n

“And that’s where the mystery comes in. But it’s nice not to know everything. <\/p>\n

“I’m looking forward to learning more about the weirdness of this atmosphere. It’s great to have a puzzle to go after.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope has identified an extraordinary gas giant that scientists say defies all conventional understanding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3844],"tags":[70,512,413,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-645912","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-sgg","10":"tag-space","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115756680510612447","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}