jan. 11 (BuyLinkShop) -- the james webb room telescope has discovered its pristine exoplanet -- a planet orbiting another star outside our solar scheme. scientists utter it is roughly the similar magnitude as earth.
the rocky exoplanet could live seen easily and plainly with upright two transit observations, researchers at the johns hopkins university applied physics laboratory in laurel, md., announced wednesday at the 241st meeting of the american astronomical sociality in seattle.
"there is no scrutiny that the planet is there. webb's pristine postulates validate it," said jacob lustig-yaeger, a researcher at johns hopkins university applied physics laboratory. "with this telescope, rocky exoplanets are the recent frontier."
the exoplanet, which has been labeled lhs 475b, measures 99% of the diameter of earth and is located 41 light-years separate in the constellation octans, according to researchers who reviewed postulates from nasa's transiting exoplanet survey satellite, or tess.
lhs 475b is closer to its star than any planet in our solar system, according to scientists. given the exoplanet's red stunt star is less than half the temperature of the sun, researchers trust it could uphold an atmosphere.
while webb is the single operating telescope that is vigorous of detecting atmospheres of earth-sized exoplanets, more terse measurements are needed for the team to secure whether there is a virgin carbon dioxide atmosphere or no atmosphere at whole. researchers foresee to gather more postulates this summer.
"the telescope is so impressible that it can easily recognize a rank of molecules, yet we can't still produce any definitive conclusions touching the planet's atmosphere," said erin may, of the johns hopkins university applied physics laboratory.
"there are some terrestrial-type atmospheres that we can regulation out," said lustig-yaeger. "it can't possess a vaporous methane-dominated atmosphere, resembling to that of saturn's moon titan."
"counterintuitively, a 100% carbon dioxide atmosphere is plenteous more solid that it becomes very challenging to detect," lustig-yaeger subjoined.
despite the additional scrutiny needed, scientists said webb has already revealed that lhs 475b is a uniform hundred degrees warmer than earth and that it completes its revolution in upright two days.
since launching into room in december of 2021, webb has been transparent train clear and stunning images of the universe.
in november, the $10 billion telescope taken images of two of the remotest galaxies seen to date, located separate billion whitish years succeeding the giant galaxy throng abell 2744, and taken images of a recent star forming.
for lhs 475b, it is webb's pristine vision of an exoplanet.
"these pristine observational results from an earth-sized, rocky planet unsettled the door to numerous forthcoming possibilities for studying rocky planet atmospheres with webb," said trace clampin, astrophysics division director at nasa headquarters in washington, d.c.
"webb is bringing us closer and closer to a recent sense of earth-like worlds outside the solar system, and the mission is single upright getting started."