A science team from the US space agency NASA has confirmed the first exoplanet using the James Webb Space Telescope. This was announced by NASA on Wednesday. The planet is said to be about 99 percent the size of Earth and was formally classified as LHS 475 b.
The research team, led by Kevis Stevenson and Jacob Lustig of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, selected the planet for observation with the James Webb Space Telescope after looking at it through data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). had become aware. With the help of the near-infrared spectrograph (NIRSpec), the scientists were able to detect the small, rocky planet. “Webb’s pristine data confirms this,” said Lustig. LHS 475 b is about 41 light-years from Earth and orbits a red dwarf star in the constellation of Octan.
unknown atmosphere
NASA scientists tried to determine what’s in the atmosphere by analyzing the transmission spectrum. “The telescope is so sensitive that it can easily detect a range of molecules, but we can’t draw any definitive conclusions about the planet’s atmosphere yet,” said Erin May, one of the participating scientists from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.
The transmission spectrum, which only gives limited information about the atmosphere.
So far, however, some earth-like atmospheres can be ruled out. The researchers speculate that the planet could have a methane-dominated atmosphere, similar to that of Saturn’s moon Titan. It is also conceivable that it has a pure carbon dioxide atmosphere. But this is very difficult to discover. But it could also be possible that the planet has no atmosphere. Further investigations after observations in the summer are necessary.
However, the data reveals that the planet is “a few hundred degrees warmer than Earth”. The planet orbits its red dwarf star in two days, according to an analysis of the light curve provided by the James Webb telescope. The star is said to be about half as hot as our sun.
(olb)
