Just as it shared some of the first and clearest images of the cosmos, the James Webb Space Telescope has delivered another first — evidence of carbon dioxide on an exoplanet.
Unlike our solar system’s gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, which orbit our sun from a great distance, WASP-39 b orbits its sun at about one-eighth the distance between our sun and Mercury.
"Webb’s unmatched infrared sensitivity has now confirmed the presence of carbon dioxide on this planet as well," NASANASA’s Webb research team used the space telescope’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph to observe the carbon dioxide surrounding WASP-39 b. "Detecting such a clear signal of carbon dioxide on WASP-39 b bodes well for the detection of atmospheres on smaller, terrestrial-sized planets," said Natalie Batalha of the University of California at Santa Cruz, who leads the team.
"Carbon dioxide molecules are sensitive tracers of the story of planet formation," said Mike Line of Arizona State University, another member of this research team. "By measuring this carbon dioxide feature, we can determine how much solid versus how much gaseous material was used to form this gas giant planet.
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