Webb telescope directly observes exoplanet CO2 for first time
AFP | Paris
The James Webb Space Telescope has directly observed the key chemical of carbon dioxide in planets outside of our solar system for the first time, scientists announced yesterday.
The gas giants are not capable of hosting extraterrestrial life, but do offer clues in a lingering mystery about how distant planets form, according to a study in The Astrophysical Journal.
The HR 8799 system, 130 light years from Earth, is only 30 million years old -- just a baby compared to our solar system's 4.6 billion years.
A US-led team of researchers used Webb to directly detect carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of all four of the system's known planets, according to the study.
They used Webb's coronagraph instruments, which block the light from bright stars to get a better view of the planets revolving around them.
"It's like putting your thumb up in front of the Sun when you're looking up at the sky," lead study author William Balmer, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University, told AFP.
Normally, the Webb telescope only detects exoplanets by glimpsing them when they cross in front of their host star. This "transiting method" was how Webb indirectly detected CO2 in the atmosphere of the gas giant WASP-39 in 2022.
But for latest discovery, "we're actually seeing the light that is emitted from the planet itself, as opposed to the fingerprint of that light from the host star," Balmer said.
This is not easy -- Balmer compared the process to using a torch to spot fireflies next to a lighthouse. While these gas giants may not be able to host life, it is possible that they had moons that could, he added.
There are missions currently under way to find out if there could be life in the vast oceans underneath the icy shells of several of Jupiter's moons.
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