6/28/2023 0 Comments Neptunes the planetThat had never before been seen for this planet or for any other planet of its class, so JWST is really delivering on its promise.” A ‘new light’ “When we received the data for this Nature paper, we could see the light from the planet just disappear when it went behind its host star. “I’ve been on a quest to understand GJ 1214b for more than a decade,” Kempton said. of Astronomy Eliza Kempton, lead author of the Nature study, said their findings mark a turning point in the study of planets like GJ 1214b. Though GJ 1214b is far too hot to be habitable, researchers discovered that its atmosphere likely contains water vapor-possibly even significant amounts-and is primarily composed of elements heavier than hydrogen. Their results, published in the journal Nature on May 10, represent the first time anyone has directly detected the light emitted by what astronomers call a “sub-Neptune” exoplanet-a category of planets that appear to be the most common in the galaxy. Their biggest obstacle is a thick layer of haze that blankets the exoplanet, shielding it from the probing eyes of telescopes and stymying efforts to study its atmosphere.īut NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope can see in the mid-infrared spectrum-revealing planetary objects and features that were previously obscured by hazes, clouds or space dust, and aiding astronomers in their search for habitable planets and early galaxies.Ī team led by scientists with the University of Maryland and the University of Chicago used the Webb telescope to observe GJ 1214b’s atmosphere by measuring the heat it emits while orbiting its host star. For more than a decade, astronomers have been trying to get a closer look at GJ 1214b, a planet 40 light-years away from Earth.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |