The James Webb telescope has detected, for the first time, the presence of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, that is, a planet outside our solar system. The discovery, announced by NASA, shows that “in the future, Webb will be able to detect and measure CO2 in the thinnest atmospheres of the smallest rocky planets” to understand if any of them have conditions favorable for life.
Located 700 light-years from Earth and discovered in 2011, “WASP-39 b is a hot gas giant with about a quarter of the mass of Jupiter (about the same as Saturn) and a diameter 1.3 times larger than that of Earth Jupiter Its extreme swelling is related, in part, to its high temperature (about 900 degrees C.) Unlike the cooler, more compact gas giants in our solar system, WASP-39 b orbits very closely from its star, just one-eighth the distance between the Sun and Mercury, completing its orbit in just over four Earth days,” explains the US space agency.
For his observations, James Webb used the method of transits, that is, when the planet passes in front of its star, the telescope captures the minuscule variation in luminosity that results. He then analyzes the light “filtered” through the planet’s atmosphere. The different molecules present in the atmosphere leave specific marks that allow their composition to be determined.
Other telescopes such as NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer had already detected the presence of water vapor, sodium and potassium in the atmosphere of this exoplanet, but the “unmatched infrared sensitivity of the Webb confirmed the presence of carbon dioxide”.
The team of scientists used NIRSpec, Webb’s near-infrared spectrograph, for the WASP-39 b observations. In the resulting spectrum of the exoplanet’s atmosphere, a small hill, between 0.0041 and 0.0046 millimeters, presents the first clear and detailed evidence of carbon dioxide ever detected on a planet outside the solar system. .
“As soon as the data appeared on my screen, the huge carbon dioxide resource amazed me,” said Zafar Rustamkulov, a member of the JWST Transiting Exoplanet Community Early Release Science Team, which carried out this research, it’s a statement. “Reaching a turning point in exoplanet science was a special moment.”
“Detecting such a clear carbon dioxide signal in WASP-39 b bodes well for detecting atmospheres on smaller planets,” said Natalie Batalha of the University of California, Santa Cruz, who leads the team.
“By measuring this feature of carbon dioxide, we can determine how much solid and gaseous material was used to form this gas giant planet,” said Mike Line of Arizona State University.
The James Webb Telescope, a $10 billion project named after a former NASA administrator, was sent into space on December 25, after successive delays, on a European-made rocket. It is in orbit 1.5 million kilometers from Earth and aims to solve mysteries of our solar system and investigate the origins of the Universe.
Source: TSF
