NASA's $10 billion Telescope has just captured its first direct unbelievable image of a Planet outside our Solar system

The James Webb Space Telescope has captured the first direct image of a distant exoplanet, a world beyond our Solar System.

Webb has returned several pictures of the exoplanet HIP 65426 b, a gas giant six to twelve times the mass of Jupiter located roughly 385 light years from Earth, using a range of instruments.

The James Webb Space Telescope captured this image of the exoplanet HIP 65426 b. (Nasa)

The findings are part of an ongoing investigation and have not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal, but Nasa announced them in a blog post Thursday morning.

"This is a pivotal moment, not only for Webb but also for astronomy in general," said Sasha Hinkley, associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Exeter. She is the principal scientist in an international team studying exoplanets.

HIP 65426 b was discovered in 2017 by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile, which observed the exoplanet in short wavelengths of infrared light because longer wavelengths are blocked by Earth's atmosphere for ground-based observatories. Because Webb is in space, he has access to more of the infrared spectrum and can see more details in distant planets.

Webb's images are not the first direct images of exoplanets; the Hubble Space Telescope has captured images of other alien worlds, but it is difficult to do so because the strong brightness of a planet's neighbouring star can obscure the light from that exoplanet. HIP 65426 b, for example, is 10,000 times fainter than its star.

HIP 65426 b, on the other hand, orbits its star at a distance 100 times greater than the Earth does the Sun, which helped astronomers identify the planet in Webb's photographs. Webb's sensors also have coronagraphs, which black out the disc of the distant star to reduce glare and make detecting and focussing on an exoplanet easier.

“It was really impressive how well the Webb coronagraphs worked to suppress the light of the host star,” Dr Hinkley said.

The photographs, captured with different filters and Webb's Near-infrared camera (Nircam) and Mid-infrared instrument (Miri), are just the beginning of what scientists anticipate will be a long series of exoplanet observations and discoveries made possible by the new space observatory. The photographs follow a fresh analysis of one of Webb's earliest sightings, a spectrum of light from the exoplanet Wasp 39b, which confirmed the presence of carbon dioxide in an extraterrestrial world's atmosphere for the first time.

“I think what’s most exciting is that we’ve only just begun,” University of California, Santa Cruz post doctoral researcher Aarynn Carter, who analyzed the new Webb images of HIP 65426 b, said in a statement. “There are many more images of exoplanets to come that will shape our overall understanding of their physics, chemistry, and formation. We may even discover previously unknown planets, too.”

James Webb ST just captured massive clouds on an Alien Planet in unprecedented detail

The James Webb Space Telescope has found a strange alien world shrouded in clouds of sand-like silicate grains. 

The exoplanet discovery, described in a new paper as the first detection of its kind, was made by the James Webb Space Telescope's NIRSpec and MIRI instruments. 

In the data, astronomers spotted evidence of silicate-rich clouds around a brown dwarf nearly 20 times the size of Jupiter. The finding confirms some earlier theories about these odd planet-like worlds.

Astronomers have long speculated that some types of brown dwarfs are wrapped in turbulent, fast-changing atmospheres. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Brown dwarfs are strange objects that are not quite big enough to ignite into stars but a little too big for ordinary planets. While brown dwarfs can't burn regular hydrogen, they can produce their own light and heat by burning deuterium (a less common isotope of hydrogen that contains an extra neutron). 

VHS 1256 b is a brown dwarf that orbits two tiny red dwarf stars 72 light-years from Earth in the constellation Corvus, or the Crow, in the southern sky. Astronomers spotted the odd exoplanet in 2016, and its reddish glow has perplexed them ever since. 

They suspected that the glow was created by some kind of atmosphere. According to Forbes, observations from the James Webb Space Telescope have now corroborated those predictions, demonstrating that VHS 1256 b must be surrounded in dense clouds filled of sand-like silicate grains.

Water, methane, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, sodium, and potassium were also found in the atmosphere of VHS 1256 b by Webb.

"We will know more from iterations on the data reduction," Brittany Miles, an astronomer at the University of California, Irvine, and lead researcher on the project, told Space.com in an email. "So far, it looks pretty similar to theoretical expectations."

The Webb data were so thorough that they revealed that the ratio of the various gases changes throughout the atmosphere of VHS 1256 b, implying that the atmosphere is not static, but rather chaotic and turbulent.

"In a calm atmosphere, there is an expected ratio of, say, methane and carbon monoxide," Sasha Hinkley, an astronomer at the University of Exeter in the U.K. and one of the study's co-authors, told Forbes. "But in many exoplanet atmospheres we're finding that this ratio is very skewed, suggesting that there is turbulent vertical mixing in these atmospheres, dredging up carbon dioxide from deep down to mix with the methane higher up in the atmosphere."

VHS 1256 b is small for a brown dwarf, suggesting that the body is young. The exoplanet orbits its two parent stars 360 sun-Earth distances apart in an oval-shaped orbit that takes 17,000 years to complete.

The study has not yet been published; however, an early version is available on the internet preprint repository arXiv.org.

The James Webb Telescope Is So Powerful It Can See The Clouds And Sea Of Saturn's Moon Titan

Let's see what the weather is on Titan today.... Will there be methane precipitation, or will it be clouded by ethane?

NASA 's James Webb Telescope continues to amaze astronomers. It is so powerful that it can see not only Saturn's moon Titan, but also its clouds and one of its seas.

It may surprise you that we use words like seas, rains, clouds, and even rivers and lakes, when we talk about the moon Titan. It is the only place in the Solar System, along with Earth, that has them. But they are not made of water, but of hydrocarbons: methane, ethane, etc. It is a toxic atmosphere for humans.

A group of astronomers headed by the Dutch professor Imke de Pater decided a few days ago to launch an experiment: Observe the moon Titan with the James Webb telescope, and only one day later with the Keck ground -based telescope in Hawaii.

The James Webb is so powerful, it can capture clouds, and even a Titan sea. Although it must be said that the Keck spotting scope can also do it. Here are the two photos, taken 30 hours apart:

The images are quite similar. You can see a couple of clouds that have moved slightly, and even a methane sea at the north pole.

But what makes the difference is that NASA 's James Webb is also an infrared telescope , and it can capture data that no other telescope can.

Here we can see, on the left, the infrared image from James Webb's NIRCam camera , and on the right the standard image, where two clouds can be seen, and the Kraken Sea:

What the James Webb contributes, which no other telescope can achieve, is that it shows data on the lower atmosphere and the height of the clouds, among others.

Combining all the data, astronomers have obtained the most detailed information about the moon Titan since the Cassini probe visited it in 2017.

They cannot be surpassed until the Dragonfly probe visits Titan in 2032. Meanwhile, the James Webb telescope will continue to fascinate us with its incredible images that are revolutionizing astronomy.

JWST snaps clearest image of Neptune’s rings since Voyager 2

NASA’s latest and greatest space telescope recently set its sights on the solar system’s most distant planet — and the results are stunning.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) used its Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) to capture this incredible shot of Neptune’s turbulent atmosphere and ethereal ring system. Neptune’s moon Triton, at left, outshines the planet because Neptune’s atmosphere is rich in methane gas, which absorbs light at the wavelengths JWST is sensitive to. IMAGE: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; IMAGE PROCESSING: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

Neptune’s delicate rings and even fainter dust bands come into clear focus in this recent image captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

Neptune, the solar system's most distant planet, is difficult to photograph since it is 30 times further away from the Sun than Earth. However, the JWST's space-based vantage point, flawless stability, and remarkably huge (21-foot-diameter) primary mirror allowed the telescope to catch Neptune's characteristics with clarity not seen in more than 30 years.

Neptune's ethereal ring structure is perhaps the most remarkable part of the new photograph. Some of these rings are so weak that they haven't been seen since NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by Neptune for the first time in 1989. "We haven't seen those faint, dusty bands in three decades, and this is the first time we've observed them in infrared," said Heidi Hammel, a Neptune expert and JWST scientist, in a press statement.

Neptune has 14 known moons, and seven of them are visible in this labeled version of the recent JWST image. Triton, at top left, reflects an average of 70 percent of the sunlight that strikes it. IMAGE: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; IMAGE PROCESSING: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

The ice giants of the solar system, Neptune and Uranus, have more heavy elements than the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, which are virtually entirely made up of hydrogen and helium. The ice giants, in particular, have a relative abundance of gaseous methane, which gives them their distinctive blue tint in visual images recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope. (Recent research indicates that Neptune's turbulent atmosphere is more efficient in dispelling haze from its cloud tops than Uranus, giving Neptune a deeper blue look.)

Because methane gas strongly absorbs the wavelengths of light JWST’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) is sensitive to (0.6 to 5 microns), Neptune appears surprisingly dim in the image above. That’s how Neptune’s nitrogen-covered moon Triton, at top left, manages to outshine the giant planet. High-altitude methane ice, meanwhile, better reflects sunlight, resulting in the bright streaks and spots visible on Neptune’s disk in this shot.

JWST has brought even our solar system's furthest remote world back into the spotlight. With more studies of Neptune and Triton planned over the next year, there will undoubtedly be more spectacular images to come.

James Webb ST just captured massive clouds on an Alien Planet in unprecedented detail

The James Webb Space Telescope has found a strange alien world shrouded in clouds of sand-like silicate grains. 

The exoplanet discovery, described in a new paper as the first detection of its kind, was made by the James Webb Space Telescope's NIRSpec and MIRI instruments. In the data, astronomers spotted evidence of silicate-rich clouds around a brown dwarf nearly 20 times the size of Jupiter. The finding confirms some earlier theories about these odd planet-like worlds.

Astronomers have long speculated that some types of brown dwarfs are wrapped in turbulent, fast-changing atmospheres. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Brown dwarfs are strange objects that are not quite big enough to ignite into stars but a little too big for ordinary planets. While brown dwarfs can't burn regular hydrogen, they can produce their own light and heat by burning deuterium (a less common isotope of hydrogen that contains an extra neutron). 

VHS 1256 b is a brown dwarf that orbits two tiny red dwarf stars 72 light-years from Earth in the constellation Corvus, or the Crow, in the southern sky. Astronomers spotted the odd exoplanet in 2016, and its reddish glow has perplexed them ever since. They suspected that the glow was created by some kind of atmosphere. According to Forbes, observations from the James Webb Space Telescope have now corroborated those predictions, demonstrating that VHS 1256 b must be surrounded in dense clouds filled of sand-like silicate grains.

Water, methane, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, sodium, and potassium were also found in the atmosphere of VHS 1256 b by Webb.

"We will know more from iterations on the data reduction," Brittany Miles, an astronomer at the University of California, Irvine, and lead researcher on the project, told Space.com in an email. "So far, it looks pretty similar to theoretical expectations."

The Webb data were so thorough that they revealed that the ratio of the various gases changes throughout the atmosphere of VHS 1256 b, implying that the atmosphere is not static, but rather chaotic and turbulent.

"In a calm atmosphere, there is an expected ratio of, say, methane and carbon monoxide," Sasha Hinkley, an astronomer at the University of Exeter in the U.K. and one of the study's co-authors, told Forbes. "But in many exoplanet atmospheres we're finding that this ratio is very skewed, suggesting that there is turbulent vertical mixing in these atmospheres, dredging up carbon dioxide from deep down to mix with the methane higher up in the atmosphere."

VHS 1256 b is small for a brown dwarf, suggesting that the body is young. The exoplanet orbits its two parent stars 360 sun-Earth distances apart in an oval-shaped orbit that takes 17,000 years to complete.

The study has not yet been published; however, an early version is available on the internet preprint repository arXiv.org.

$1B Giant Magellan Telescope to Have 4x the Resolution of James Webb

A new $205 million cash infusion has been received for the Giant Magellan Telescope, the most potent telescope ever designed. This money will be utilised to speed up construction. It will have four times the power of the James Webb Space Telescope once it is complete.

The money, which will be used to build the enormous 12-story telescope building that will be housed at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile's Atacama Desert, is said to be one of the greatest funding rounds for the telescope since its creation.

When finished, the Giant Magellan Telescope will have ten times the light collecting area and four times the spatial resolution of the James Webb Space Telescope (10 times the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope).

It will also be 200 times more powerful than any current existing research telescope. While no firm date for its completion has been noted, commissioning is expected to begin in the late 2020s, and this latest cash infusion will certainly go a long way to making that goal a reality.

The GMTO says that the construction of the telescope has already achieved significant progress over the last few years.

“Six of seven primary mirror segments have been cast in Tucson, Arizona. The third primary mirror segment has completed its two-year polishing phase and is undergoing final testing. Construction of a 40,000-square-foot facility in Rockford, Illinois to manufacture the telescope structure is complete. The production of the telescope’s first adaptive secondary mirror is well underway in France and Italy, and the site in Chile is primed for the next stage of construction and pouring of the foundation,” the GMTO says.

“This latest $205 million investment round positions the Giant Magellan Telescope to be one of the first in a new generation of extremely large telescopes to be constructed. First light is anticipated by the end of the decade.”

 

The Giant Magellan Telescope in one piece.

The Giant Magellan Telescope is regarded as the space exploration of the future. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which recently wowed the world with its astounding resolution, will be outclassed by this telescope, which will use seven of the largest mirrors in the world to create the most detailed images of the Universe ever captured. The 25.4-meter primary mirror array is made up of seven mirrors with an 8.4-meter diameter and weighs 18 metric tonnes. However, the Giant Magellan Telescope will advance things.

The Giant Magellan Telescope's Cross Section

The 368 square metre total light collection area will provide images crisp enough to distinguish the torch carved on a dime from over 99 miles (160 kilometres) away. The telescope mount is 65 metres long, 39 metres tall, and 2,100 tonnes in weight. It can rotate completely in less than three minutes. With the greatest field of view of any telescope, seven adaptive secondary mirrors may reconfigure the two millimeter-thick surface 2,000 times per second to compensate for the optical blurring impact of the Earth's atmosphere.

In short, the telescope is set to be a marvel of technology and set a new pinnacle for space observation.

“This unprecedented angular resolution, combined with revolutionary spectrographs and high contrast cameras, will work in direct synergy with JWST to empower new scientific discoveries,” the GMTO says.

Image credits: Giant Magellan Telescope — GMTO Corporation

NASA's $10 billion Telescope has just captured its first direct unbelievable image of a Planet outside our Solar system

The James Webb Space Telescope has captured the first direct image of a distant exoplanet, a world beyond our Solar System.

Webb has returned several pictures of the exoplanet HIP 65426 b, a gas giant six to twelve times the mass of Jupiter located roughly 385 light years from Earth, using a range of instruments.

The James Webb Space Telescope captured this image of the exoplanet HIP 65426 b. (Nasa)

The findings are part of an ongoing investigation and have not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal, but Nasa announced them in a blog post Thursday morning.

"This is a pivotal moment, not only for Webb but also for astronomy in general," said Sasha Hinkley, associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Exeter. She is the principal scientist in an international team studying exoplanets.

HIP 65426 b was discovered in 2017 by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile, which observed the exoplanet in short wavelengths of infrared light because longer wavelengths are blocked by Earth's atmosphere for ground-based observatories. Because Webb is in space, he has access to more of the infrared spectrum and can see more details in distant planets.

Webb's images are not the first direct images of exoplanets; the Hubble Space Telescope has captured images of other alien worlds, but it is difficult to do so because the strong brightness of a planet's neighbouring star can obscure the light from that exoplanet. HIP 65426 b, for example, is 10,000 times fainter than its star.

HIP 65426 b, on the other hand, orbits its star at a distance 100 times greater than the Earth does the Sun, which helped astronomers identify the planet in Webb's photographs. Webb's sensors also have coronagraphs, which black out the disc of the distant star to reduce glare and make detecting and focussing on an exoplanet easier.

“It was really impressive how well the Webb coronagraphs worked to suppress the light of the host star,” Dr Hinkley said.

The photographs, captured with different filters and Webb's Near-infrared camera (Nircam) and Mid-infrared instrument (Miri), are just the beginning of what scientists anticipate will be a long series of exoplanet observations and discoveries made possible by the new space observatory. The photographs follow a fresh analysis of one of Webb's earliest sightings, a spectrum of light from the exoplanet Wasp 39b, which confirmed the presence of carbon dioxide in an extraterrestrial world's atmosphere for the first time.

“I think what’s most exciting is that we’ve only just begun,” University of California, Santa Cruz post doctoral researcher Aarynn Carter, who analyzed the new Webb images of HIP 65426 b, said in a statement. “There are many more images of exoplanets to come that will shape our overall understanding of their physics, chemistry, and formation. We may even discover previously unknown planets, too.”

The James Webb Space Telescope has just captured Stunning photos of the Phantom Galaxy's 'grand design spiral.'

The James Webb Space Telescope just published photographs of the magnificently spiral M74 Phantom Galaxy, demonstrating why it is humanity's best space telescope to date. The European Space Agency made the images public.

Because it is named after one of NASA's administrators, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) may appear to be a NASA project. What gets lost in the jargon is that the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) also contribute to the programme.

For example, the ESA contributed to the NIRSpec, the MIRI Instrument, and the launch of the telescope last year. The ESA's contributions are rewarded with a promise of at least 15% of JWST observation time, a policy that was also maintained for the Hubble Space Telescope.

Taking Down the Phantom Galaxy

The Phantom Galaxy is 32 million light years away from Earth in the constellation Pisces, facing our planet. This makes it easy to see it as a study object.

Furthermore, the galaxy's spatial arms make it an appealing object to observe in the sky. There are numerous spiral galaxies in the universe. Their spirals, however, are "patchy and jagged to structures," according to ESA. The spiral arms of the M74, on the other hand, are conspicuous and well-defined, earning it the moniker "grand design spiral."

Other observatories, including the ground-based Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, ALMA, have also captured the M74 using sensors capable of both ultraviolet and visible spectrum wavelengths.

JWST's perspective on the Phantom Galaxy

Using its Mid-Infrared Instrument, the JWST recently took photos of the Phantom Galaxy M74 (MIRI). The MIRI has a wavelength range of 5-28 microns and is equipped with a camera, according to NASA's JWST page. This enables the equipment to take wide-field, broadband photos of distant galaxies, freshly emerging stars, and barely detectable comets.

ESA 

The gadget has allowed scientists to view fine filaments of gas and dust in the spiral arms of the galaxy, which extend outward from the galaxy's centre. The lack of gas in the nuclear zone is clearly noticeable in the photograph, providing an unobstructed view of the nuclear star cluster.

Hubble Space Telescope photos of M74 previously collected show brilliant areas of star formation known as HII regions. ESA researchers overlaid JWST data on these photos to create the new images of the galaxy.

According to ESA, similar new information from the JWST will help astronomers find start-forming regions in other galaxies, determine the masses and ages of star clusters, and learn more about the dust travelling in space.

Image Credits: ESA

Reference(s): ESA

James Webb ST Has Captured a Perfect Einstein Ring 12 billion light-years away

Since the initial James Webb Space Telescope photographs were released in July, our feeds have been inundated with breathtaking images of space, ranging from amazingly detailed images of Jupiter to the furthest distant known star.

Image Credits: A colourized representation of a faraway Einstein ring. Spaceguy44/Reddit; JWST/MAST.

Webb has done it again, this time capturing an almost perfect Einstein ring from a distance of 12 billion light-years. And we can't take our eyes off them.

The colourized image, which was uploaded on Reddit by astronomy graduate student Spaceguy44, is shown below.

An Einstein ring happens when a distant galaxy is magnified and wrapped into an almost-perfect ring by a large galaxy in front of it, as Spaceguy44 describes on Reddit.

SPT-S J041839-4751.8 is the name of the galaxy in question, and it is located 12 billion light-years away.

Here's a closer look at it, also processed by Spaceguy44:

(JWST/MAST; Spaceguy44/Reddit) Galaxy SPT-S J041839-4751.8

We wouldn't be able to observe this galaxy at all if it weren't for the Einstein ring, according to Spaceguy44.

In addition to being visually appealing, the presence of Einstein rings allows us to investigate these otherwise inaccessible galaxies.

This is known as gravitational lensing, and it was predicted by Einstein, therefore the name.

The effect occurs only when the distant galaxy, the nearby magnifying galaxy, and the observer (in this case, the Webb space telescope) align.

If you wish to experiment, Spaceguy44 claims that the stem and base of a wine glass produce a similar effect. Try it with a book page and observe how the word zooms in.

Although seeing Einstein rings is unusual, it is not unheard of. Hubble already photographed amazing Einstein rings.

This isn't even Webb's first time capturing SPT-S J041839-Einstein 4751.8's ring.

The same region was acquired by the space telescope's Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) in August, and Spaceguy44 colourized and released it at the time.

However, the image below was not as clear.

The Einstein ring in near-infrared. Spaceguy44/Reddit; JWST/MAST)

Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) camera obtained the data in the current image, which was downloaded via the MAST portal.

Three different filters are used in the photograph. The F1000W filter in red collects light wavelengths at 10m. The F770W filter for 7.7m wavelengths is green. The blue filter is the F560W, which detects wavelengths of 5.6m.

Spaceguy44 then used astropy to align and colourize the photos before further processing in GIMP.

Reference(s): Reddit

BREAKING: James Webb Space Telescope Just Detected Direct Evidence Carbon Dioxide On An Alien Planet

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a cooperation between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency, has caught definitive evidence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a gas giant planet circling a Sun-like star 700 light years away.

The result, which has been accepted for publication in Nature, provides important insights into exoplanet composition and formation and is indicative of Webb’s ability to detect and measure carbon dioxide in the thinner atmospheres of smaller rocky planets. And furthermore, a better understanding of such exoplanets could lead to the discovery of worlds that could harbor extraterrestrial life.

The team that made the discovery was granted time on the telescope through the Early Science Publication Program, which was selected to collect some of Webb’s first data after its science operations began in late June Led by Natalie Batala of the University of California, Santa Cruz, the team includes astronomers from around the world, including Björn Benneke of the Université de Montréal, who is also a member of the Institute for Exoplanet Research (iREx).

The target of the monitoring program, WASP-39 b, is a hot gas giant with a mass roughly a quarter that of Jupiter (about the same as Saturn) and a diameter 1.3 times that of Jupiter. Its exceptional puffiness is due in part to the high temperature (about 900°C). 

Unlike the cooler, more compact gas giants in our Solar System, WASP-39 b orbits very close to its star – only about one-eighth the distance between the Sun and Mercury – completing one orbit in just over four Earth days . 

The discovery of the planet, reported in 2011, was based on ground-based detections of the subtle, periodic dimming of light from its host star as the planet transits, or passes in front of, the star.

During transit, some of the starlight is completely blocked by the planet (causing total dimming) and some passes through the planet’s atmosphere. Because different gases absorb different combinations of colors, researchers can analyze small differences in the brightness of transmitted light across a spectrum of wavelengths to determine exactly what the atmosphere is made of.

With its combination of inflated atmosphere and frequent transits, WASP-39 b is an ideal target for transmission spectroscopy. The team used Webb’s (NIRSpec) to make this discovery.

First clear detection of CO2A transmission spectrum of the hot-gas exoplanet WASP-39 b, imaged by Webb’s (NIRSpec) on July 10, 2022, reveals the first definitive evidence of carbon dioxide on a planet outside the Solar System. 

What the discovery team saw was extremely impressive. A significant signal—an absorption feature—was detected at wavelengths between 4.1 and 4.6 microns in the infrared range. This is the first clear, detailed and indisputable evidence of carbon dioxide ever found on a planet outside the solar system.

“I was absolutely blown away,” said Benecke, a UdeM physics professor and member of the Transiting Exoplanet Team who worked on the concept of the observing program and the analysis of the NIRSpec data with UdeM graduate students Louis-Philippe Coulomb, Caroline Piolet, Michael Radica and Pierre-Alexis Roy and postdoctoral fellow Jake Taylor.

“We were analysing the data here in Montreal and we saw this huge carbon dioxide signature: 26 times stronger than any noise in the data. Before JWST, we often dug into the noise, but here we had a perfectly solid signature. It’s like seeing something clearly with your own eyes.”

Björn Benneke, a professor at Université de Montréal and iREx, is a key member of the team that discovered the first definitive signature of carbon dioxide in an exoplanet atmosphere.

No observatory has ever measured such subtle differences in the brightness of so many individual infrared colors in the exoplanet transmission spectrum before. 

Access to this part of the spectrum, from 3 to 5.5 microns, is critical for measuring abundant gases such as water and methane, as well as carbon dioxide, that are believed to exist in many different types of exoplanets.

“Finding such a clear carbon dioxide signal on WASP-39 b bodes well for the discovery of atmospheres on smaller Earth-sized planets,” said Batala, the program’s principal investigator.

“On Earth,” Beneke added, “carbon dioxide plays such an important role in our climate, and we’re used to seeing its spectroscopic signatures here. Now we see that signature on a distant world. It really drives home the message that these exoplanets are real worlds: as real as Earth and the planets in our solar system.”

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s leading space science observatory. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond distant worlds around other stars, and explore the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.

Reference(s): NASA

NASA's Webb snaps 150 million pixel image in never-before seen detail

The $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope has captured its first batch of coloured scientific photos, which NASA has made public.

Incredible photos collected by the much awaited James Webb Space Telescope have been made public by NASA (JWST).

The galaxy group "Stephan's Quintet" is displayed above as NASA has posted the first coloured photographs captured by the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope on its blog. The space agency claims that Stephan's Quintet has been captured in detail that has never been seen before. The image you are looking at is actually a mosaic created from 1,000 different photographs.

Notably, NASA claims that the collection of images that were flattened into one image has more than 150 million pixels and reveals previously unrevealed information about sparkling clusters of a million or more stars and how gas and dust are being pulled in various directions by the gravity of specific objects. Additionally, according to NASA's blog, this photograph is the biggest one to date and is about the same size as one-fifth of the Moon's diameter.