A physics-based model has recovered the known giant planet 51 Eridani b in existing James Webb Space Telescope images at a previously unrecovered wavelength. The peer-reviewed study reports better detection sensitivity in the tested observations by accounting for tiny optical changes. The advance concerns processing archived observations, with gains that vary between datasets and distances from the star.
The known giant planet 51 Eridani b has emerged from the glare in existing James Webb Space Telescope observations after researchers modelled the telescope’s optics more closely. The peer-reviewed study introduces Physics-based Learning for Imaging Planets, or FLIP, a method for removing the pattern left by starlight. It recovered the planet at 4.3 micrometres, where earlier processing had not detected it.[1], [2]
Conventional processing uses images of a reference star to estimate the unwanted light. Small pointing changes and thermal shifts can make that comparison imperfect, leaving a residual glow. The new approach follows light through a physical model of the telescope and adjusts for such differences. Tests used observations of three stars, including two with known planets, and artificial planetary signals to assess whether processing also removed real planet light.[1]
Across the tested datasets, planet-detection sensitivity improved by 2–15 times relative to the standard method. The gain varied with the observation and separation from the star. At some larger separations, exposure time was a stronger constraint than imperfect starlight subtraction. None of the observations reached the fundamental limit set by photon noise. The researchers made their observations and analysis code publicly available.[1]
