The James Webb Space Telescope has captured its first-ever exoplanet, nearly 41 light-years away in the Octans constellation, which surprisingly also has a diameter 99 percent that of Earth, reveals an Engadget report.?
The exoplanet dubbed LHS 475b, the discovery was made by a team of astronomers from the John Hopkins University Applied Physics? Laboratory, led by Kevin Stevenson and Jacob Lustig-Yaeger. They first saw evidence of the exoplanet while looking through generated data from NASA¡¯s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).
However, the existence of the exoplanet was confirmed using Webb¡¯s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec). It observed two transits in front of its parent star.
NASA highlights that even though there are many telescopes in operation today -- both on Earth and in space, only the James Webb Space Telescope has the resolving capabilities to accurately define the atmospheres of Earth-sized exoplanets.?
The research team is still trying to find if the planet has any sort of atmosphere sitting atop the rocky mass by analysing its transmission spectrum.
There is a possibility that the planet will be lacking its crucial gaseous insulation, but at these distances, it could actually be hiding a very small atmosphere, quite close to the surface.?
Lustig-Yaeger stated, ¡°There are some terrestrial-type atmospheres that we can rule out. It can¡¯t have a thick methane-dominated atmosphere.¡±?
The planet however isn¡¯t really habitable. For starters, it has a temperature of around 300 degrees Celsius. If future studies show cloud cover, it could hint at a greenhouse world similar to Venus.?
The planet is also maintaining a tidal locked orbit with its star of just two days, very close to an attempt with Sol. However, since the red dwarf produces less than half of our sun¡¯s energy, it could, at least theoretically, maintain an atmosphere.
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