“This is the first time we see something like this” – The James Webb Telescope discovers a unique exoplanet – Epoch Times Romania

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has discovered a nearby alien planet, the first of its kind, which is located about 100 light years from Earth, and is covered by a thick layer of vapor, informs. Place.

Named GJ 9827 d, this world is about twice the size of Earth, three times the size of our planet, and has an atmosphere composed almost entirely of water vapor.

“This is the first time we’ve seen something like this. The planet appears to be made up mostly of hot water vapour, meaning it is what we call a ‘steam world‘.

To be clear, this planet is unsustainable, at least for the forms of life we ​​know on Earth,” said team member and former University of Michigan student Eshan Raul, who is now at Univ. Wisconsin-Madison.

Astronomers have long speculated that a “steam world” like GJ 9827 might exist, but this is the first time such a planet has been seen.

As Raul says, this planet is unlikely to support life, at least as we understand it, but it could help astronomers study other small exoplanets between the size of Earth and Cultivable Neptune.

A big step

The research team, led by Caroline Piaulet-Ghorayeb from the Trottier Institute for Exoplanet Research at the University of Montreal, discovered the vaporous nature of GJ 9827 d using a technique called “transmission spectroscopy”.

Transmission spectroscopy is based on the fact that the elements and the chemical substances that make them absorb and emit light at normal electromagnetic waves. When light from a star shines through a planet’s atmosphere, the elements in that atmosphere absorb certain wavelengths, leaving “gaps” in the light’s spectrum. These voids are the “fingerprints” of certain elements and molecules in that atmosphere.

Until now, the atmospheres on most of the exoplanets that have been studied by astronomers using this method have been dominated by the two lightest and most common elements in the universe, hydrogen and helium. This is similar to the atmospheres of the solar system gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, but is very different from Earth’s complex atmosphere and the atmospheres that would be needed to support life as we know it. .

“GJ 9827 d is the first planet on which we have found an atmosphere full of heavy molecules like the terrestrial planets in the solar system. This is a big step”, said Piaulet-Ghorayeb in the statement.

GJ 9827 was first discovered by the Kepler space telescope in 2017. The exoplanet is located just 8.4 million kilometers from its host star, GJ 9827, which is about 6% of the distance from Earth to the Sun. This closeness means that GJ 9827 d completes one orbit in just over six Earth days. It is the third of three known exoplanets discovered around this star.

In 2023, the Hubble Space Telescope discovered the first exciting sight of water vapor in the atmosphere of GJ 9827 d. not just a hint of water vapor, but drowning in it metaphorically!

“It was a very wonderful time. I was especially looking for water worlds because it was thought they might exist. If these are true, it makes you wonder what else it could be,” said Raul.

The team believes there are many more worlds like GJ 9827 d to be found, suggesting that vapor planets and water worlds may be very common.

“At this point in my career, I can work with data from the most powerful telescope ever built,” concluded Raul. “I think it’s proof that there was never a better time best ever for young people to enter astronomy.”