James Webb Telescope Discovers Hidden Giant Planet in Famous Star System

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has identified a third giant planet in the Beta Pictoris system, named Beta Pictoris d.

Using NIRSpec, astronomers detected carbon monoxide in the planet’s atmosphere instead of imaging the planet directly.

The result shows Webb can uncover faint, hidden exoplanets through atmospheric spectroscopy, even inside bright debris disks.

The discovery opens a new path for finding giant planets that are difficult to see with direct imaging.