James Webb Telescope Detects CO2 In A Planet’s Atmosphere Outside Our Solar System

The powerful James Webb Space Telescope has, for the first time ever, detected signs of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet that’s out of our solar system, reveals a report by AFP.

NASA

The exoplanet named WASP-39 is a hot gas giant that was found orbiting a star around 700 light years away. The exoplanet orbits its star once every four Earth days and is one-fourth the size of Jupiter but has a diameter that’s 1.3 times bigger.

The discovery was done using Webb’s state-of-the-art infrared sensor dubbed NIRSpec. In fact, the frequency of WASP-39’s orbit and its large atmosphere made it the perfect candidate for an early test of the NIRSpec IR sensor. Every time the exoplanet crossed in front of its star, it blocked out a considerable amount of light.?

NASA

However, at its edges, a small amount of light passes through the atmosphere. The highly sensitive NIRSpec is capable of detecting the smallest changes that the atmosphere has on the light, which allows them to determine its gas composition.?

The Hubble and Spitzer had already detected water vapour, sodium and potassium in WASP-39’s atmosphere, and thanks to James Webb Telescope’s NIRSpec instrument, carbon dioxide can now also be added to this list.?

Zafar Rustamkulov, a Johns Hopkins University researcher, said in a statement, "It was a special moment, crossing an important threshold in exoplanet sciences."

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