JawaPos.com – After returning visually stunning and scientifically spectacular results from its first six months of operation, the James Webb Space Telescope has recorded another milestone. The telescope is rumored to have found its first exoplanet.
The Webb telescope managed to find a planet that is similar to Earth, 41 light years away. The planet that enters the constellation Octans has a diameter of 99 percent of Earth and is named LHS 475 b.
Specifically a team of astronomers from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, led by Kevin Stevenson and Jacob Lustig-Yaeger, first spotted evidence of a potential exoplanet while excavating data generated from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).
However, it was Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) that confirmed the existence of the planet by observing two transits in front of its host star.
“There is no doubt that planets exist. Webb’s original data validates it,” said Lustig-Yaeger in a NASA press release.
As the space agency notes, among currently operating telescopes (both terrestrial and orbital), only the Webb telescope has the resolution capability to accurately characterize the atmosphere of an Earth-sized exoplanet.
The research team is still working to determine, if any, what kind of atmosphere is above the rocky mass. Then, the researchers also analyzed its transmission spectrum.
It’s possible that the planet doesn’t have its critical gas insulation, but at this distance, it could be hiding a minuscule atmosphere near the surface.
“In contrast, an atmosphere of 100 percent carbon dioxide is much denser, making it very difficult to detect,” continues Lustig-Yaeger.
That said, the planet’s surface temperature does appear to be around 300 Celsius, several hundred degrees warmer than on Earth. If cover clouds found in later studies, then it could suggest a greenhouse world climate closer to that of Venus.
