PIA17008: An Astronomer's Fantasy: Planets in the Lab


An Astronomer’s Fantasy: Planets in the Lab

Caption:

If astronomers could somehow pull planets out of the sky and analyze them in the laboratory, it might look something like this artistically altered image illustrating new research from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The infrared observatory allows astronomers to study closely the atmospheres of hot Jupiter planets -- those outside our solar system that orbit near the blistering heat of their stars.

In this image, an artistic version of a hot Jupiter inspired by computer simulations has been inserted into a photo showing a Spitzer researcher, Heather Knutson, in a laboratory at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, where she works. In reality, Knutson does not work in a lab, nor wear a lab coat and goggles, but scrutinizes telescope data from her office computer.

Knutson is the co-author of a new study led by Nikole Lewis from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. They used Spitzer to monitor a hot Jupiter, called HAT-P-2b, as it orbited all the way around its star in an eccentric, comet-like orbit. This allowed the team to watch the planet heat up as it moved closer to the star, and cool down as it moved away -- almost like putting a Bunsen burner to a planet in a laboratory.

Background Info:

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. For more information about Spitzer, visit http://spitzer.caltech.edu and http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer .

Cataloging Keywords:

Name Value Additional Values
Target
System
Target Type Exoplanet
Mission Spitzer Space Telescope
Instrument Host Spitzer Space Telescope
Host Type Space Telescope
Instrument
Detector
Extra Keywords Artwork, Atmosphere, Color, Comet, Infrared, Orbit
Acquisition Date
Release Date 2013-05-06
Date in Caption
Image Credit NASA/JPL-Caltech
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA17008
Identifier PIA17008