The Webb Telescope has discovered its first extrasolar planet, reaching 99% of the Earth’s diameter

The discovered exoplanet, officially designated as LHS 475 b, is 99 percent the diameter of Earth. However, it is several hundred degrees hotter because it is much closer to its star than any planet in the Solar System is to the Sun: it orbits there in two days. However, the red dwarf it orbits is half the temperature of our star.

The planet is located in the constellation Eighty, about 41 light-years from our planet. Despite this distance, scientists have tried using a telescope to determine the composition of the atmosphere, but they still don’t know if there is a planet surrounding it. But they can rule out certain types of atmospheres, such as a thick methane-dominated atmosphere similar to that of Saturn’s moon Titan. They hope the new measurements, which they plan to make during further observations this summer, will provide answers.

“Webb is bringing us ever closer to new knowledge of Earth-like worlds outside the solar system, and this is just the beginning of his mission,” said Mark Clampin, head of the division of astrophysics at NASA Headquarters. in Washington.

The star cluster, which appears as a pink-red cloud against the shimmering black of space in the Webb telescope image, is located in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy near our Milky Way. Astronomers have studied this area because conditions in NGC 346 resemble those that prevailed in the universe more than ten billion years ago.

The James Webb Telescope has been observing the universe from a distance of 1.5 million kilometers from Earth since last January. The device, the most powerful of its kind to date, worth ten billion dollars (CZK 223 billion), is a project of NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency CSA.