James Webb Space Telescope discovers its first exoplanet as stunning image is revealed
For the first time since its operations began in 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured a direct image, published by the journal Nature, of a new exoplanet — a planet that orbits outside the solar system.
This discovery marks a major breakthrough in astronomy and a 'new step' in the ongoing search for planets that exist beyond our solar system.
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This discovery was made possible by a team from France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), working at the Observatoire de Paris-PSL in partnership with Université Grenoble Alpes.
3 The James Webb Space Telescope captures images of exoplanet TWA 7 B's disk.
JWST/ESO/Lagrange
From Earth, these planets appear directly next to bright stars, so their faint signals often get lost in the glare.
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To combat this, the CNRS team designed a chronograph — a special telegraphic tool for the JWST that blocks out a star's light, much like how the Moon blocks out the Sun during a solar eclipse.
Named TWA 7b, the newly discovered planet is surrounded by a swirling disk of rocky debris and dust — remnants from the early stages of planet formation.
It orbits a young star, TWA 7, which has three distinct rings, one of which is especially narrow, and is surrounded by two empty areas. The JWST revealed a source within the heart of this narrow ring.
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This exoplanet is 10 times smaller — roughly the size of Saturn — than any exoplanet previously observed using this method.
Which has to be tiny considering the JWST gave way to six distant 'rogue' worlds, discovered by a team at Johns Hopkins University last summer.
At the time, researchers believed that these worlds were potentially brown dwarfs — the astronomical term for failed stars.
'If you have an object that looks like a young Jupiter, is it possible that it could have become a star under the right conditions?' said lead study author Adam Langeveld.
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Other relevant discoveries made by the JWST around the same time provided data to researchers from the University of Michigan and Montreal to assume that there are potential oceans and air sources on the exoplanet dubbed LHS 1140 b, which is located within the constellation Cetus in the night sky.
3 The James Webb Space Telescope is shown before its 2021 launch.
via REUTERS
3 The Webb telescope previously captured jaw-dropping visualizations of other areas, including these dramatic 'cosmic cliffs' in the Carina Nebula Complex.
NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI. / SWNS
Most exoplanets we know about have been detected using indirect methods like measuring a star's wobble or dimming as a planet crosses in front of it — the method scientists artificially recreated to discover TWA 7 b.
In the bigger picture, learning how planets like TWA 7 b form and shape their surroundings brings us one step closer to understanding the origins of planetary systems, including our own.
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Astronauts and scientists explain why living in space is almost impossible
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Only 757 people have made it to space — and even fewer have stayed for very long. One of the biggest problems of living in space or on another world is the unknown. We simply aren't certain of what it will do to the human body because no one has lived in space for longer than 14 months at a time, and only 757 people have ever entered space. What we do know, so far, is that it's not the healthiest way to live. Common side effects of long-duration stays in microgravity include muscle and bone loss, decreased blood pressure, and blurred vision. While most of these return to normal once an astronaut is back on Earth, some effects of space radiation — like an increased risk of cancer, cataracts, and damage to the central nervous system — can be permanent. In all probability, the longer a person remains in space, the worse their health becomes. 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The moon is close but has no breathable air, hardly any atmosphere to protect against deadly space radiation, and nights there can last up to two Earth weeks. Mars has a thicker atmosphere than the moon, but it also lacks breathable air and has toxic dirt and harmful dust storms. "The single thing that differentiates the Earth from every other place in the solar system is that there is free oxygen in the atmosphere," said Mike Shara, astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History. "So we can go take a nice breath, and if you were to do that on essentially any other planet, you would die, almost instantly," he said. There may be other planets outside our solar system more similar to Earth, but they're just too far away for current technology. "We're talking decades or at least a decade to get to the outer solar system. And 1,000, 2,000, or 10,000 years to get to the nearest star. Not practical," Shara told BI. 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