NASA’s James Webb discovers its first PLANET just 41 light years away

NASAThe James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has discovered its first planet – and the rocky world is similar in size to ours.

Formally classified as LHS 475 b an exoplanet it is 99 percent of Earth’s diameter, and although it is terrestrial, scientists do not yet know if it has an atmosphere.

Although the team cannot conclude what is present, they have ruled out a dense methane-dominated atmosphere similar to that in Saturnthe moon Titan.

JWST revealed that the planet, 41 light-years away, is several hundred degrees warmer than Earth and completes an orbit in two days.

Such exoplanets have remained “invisible” to space telescopes, but JWST proves once again how powerful its technology is.

Mark Clampin, director of the astrophysics division at NASA headquarters in Washington, said va statement: ‘These first results of observing a rocky Earth-sized planet open the door to many future possibilities for studying the atmospheres of rocky planets with Webb.

‘Webb is bringing us ever closer to a new understanding of Earth-like worlds outside our solar system, and the mission has only just begun.’

As stunning as the discovery is, scientists are now working to figure out what the planet’s atmosphere is made of.

The team notes that while the planet may not have an atmosphere, some atmospheric compositions, such as an atmosphere of pure carbon dioxide, are not out of the question.

Jacob Lustig-Yaeger, both of Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, said in a statement, “Counterintuitively, an atmosphere with 100 percent carbon dioxide is so much more compact that it becomes very difficult to detect.”

Even more precise measurements are needed for the team to distinguish an atmosphere of pure carbon dioxide from an atmosphere without an atmosphere.

The researchers are expected to obtain additional spectra with upcoming observations this summer.

“We are at the forefront of studying small, rocky exoplanets,” Lustig-Yaeger said.

“We’ve barely scratched the surface of what their atmosphere might be.”

The researchers’ findings opened up the possibility of pinpointing Earth-sized planets orbiting smaller red dwarf stars.

“This confirmation of a rocky planet highlights the precision of the mission’s instruments,” Stevenson said.

“And this is just the first of many discoveries he will make.” Lustig-Yaeger agreed. ‘With this telescope, rocky exoplanets are the new frontier.’

While scientists don’t know what the atmosphere is made of, JWST can find out.

NASA announced in November that the telescope had successfully revealed the composition of the exoplanet’s atmosphere in never-before-seen detail, a milestone that suggests it could also search for alien life.

JWST’s powerful instruments picked up atoms and molecules, along with signs of active chemistry and clouds—features that Hubble and Spitzer couldn’t detect when they looked at the planet and those containing signs of life.

Astronomers used WASP-39b, a hot Saturn 700 light-years from Earth, to test the telescope’s capabilities. The telescope used its infrared capabilities to pick up colors and chemical fingerprints that cannot be detected in visible light.

The new findings, which are considered ‘game changers’, could reveal how this exoplanet formed from the disk of gas and dust that surrounded the parent star in its youth.

WASP-39b orbits a host star eight times closer than Mercury to our sun, which astronomers believe should lead to a deeper understanding of how these processes affect the variety of planets observed in the galaxy.

To uncover the secrets of the exoplanet, JWST tracked the planet as it passed its star, allowing some of its light to filter through its atmosphere.

“Different types of chemicals in the atmosphere absorb different colors of the starlight spectrum, so the missing colors tell astronomers which molecules are present,” NASA said in a Tuesday announcement.

“By observing space in infrared light, Webb can pick up chemical fingerprints that cannot be detected in visible light.”

The telescope also detected a range of elements including sodium (Na), potassium (K) and water vapor (H2O) in the exoplanet’s atmosphere.

These confirm what was previously captured by space and ground-based telescope observations, but JWST found additional fingerprints of water at these longer wavelengths that had not been seen before.

The new data also found carbon dioxide detected at higher resolutions, twice as much as previously detected.

While carbon monoxide was detected, astronomers did not identify methane (CH4) and hydrogen sulfide (H2S) in the data.