This was announced by the universities of Bern and Geneva involved in the study on Thursday. According to them, it is a scientific sensation. The first findings of the international research team are published in the journal “Nature”.
CO2 is a central component of the Earth’s atmosphere due to its role in regulating the climate. The two universities write that being able to clearly detect the molecule in the atmosphere of distant exoplanets is therefore an essential step in the search for livable worlds.
Hot gas giant
Planet WASP-39b is a hot gas giant orbiting a Sun-like star 700 light-years from Earth. The research team was able to detect the fingerprint of carbon dioxide in the light that traversed the atmosphere of WASP-39b – using a near-infrared spectrograph.
The discovery of such a clear signal of carbon dioxide on WASP-39b bodes well, said US researcher Natalie Batalha, leader of the international research team – “both for discovering atmospheres on smaller, Earth-sized planets and for measuring the abundance of other gases such as water and methane”.
Understanding how a planet’s atmosphere is composed also allows insights into the planet’s origin and evolution, the press release continues.
A million and a half kilometers away
The “Webb” mission is a collaboration between the space agencies NASA, ESA and the Canadian space agency CSA. The telescope was launched in December 2021 after decades of preparation. It is now more than one and a half million kilometers from Earth.
The James Webb Telescope delivered spectacular images this summer:
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Source: Nachrichten
