Webb’s capabilities allowed astronomers to see the region close to the star. By studying it, we get a unique window into the recent dynamical history of this system,” said lead study author Kellen Lawson, postdoctoral program fellow at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and member of the research team that studied AU Mic. “A debris disk is continuously replenished by collisions of planetesimals. When small, solid objects called planetesimals - a planet in the making - crashed into each other, they left behind a big, dusty ring around the star and formed a debris disk. The dusty disk around the star, named AU Mic, represents the remnants of planet formation. These two images show the dusty debris disk around AU Mic, a red dwarf star located 32 light-years away in the Microscopium constellation. The telescope’s images mark the first time such a disk has been captured in these infrared wavelegnths of light, which are invisible to the human eye. More Webb observations were shared at the meeting on Wednesday, including never-before-seen views of a dusty disk swirling around a nearby red dwarf star. “Webb is bringing us closer and closer to a new understanding of Earth-like worlds outside the Solar System, and the mission is only just getting started.” “These first observational results from an Earth-sized, rocky planet open the door to many future possibilities for studying rocky planet atmospheres with Webb,” said Mark Clampin, Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters, in a statement. The researchers believe their discovery will just be the first of many in Webb’s future. Given that the star is less than half the temperature of our sun, it’s possible that the planet could still maintain an atmosphere despite its close proximity to the star. The planet completes a single orbit around its red dwarf host star every 2 Earth days. “We have barely begun scratching the surface of what their atmospheres might be like.” “We’re at the forefront of studying small, rocky exoplanets,” Lustig-Yaeger said.
This graphic shows the change in relative brightness of the host star and planet, spanning three hours. If the researchers detect any clouds on LHS 475 b, it may turn out to be more like Venus - which is considered to be Earth’s hotter twin with a carbon dioxide atmosphere. Webb’s detections also revealed that the planet is a few hundred degrees warmer than our planet. The astronomers will have another chance to observe the planet again over the summer and conduct follow-up analysis on the potential presence of an atmosphere. “It can’t have a thick methane-dominated atmosphere, similar to that of Saturn’s moon Titan.” “There are some terrestrial-type atmospheres that we can rule out,” Lustig-Yaeger said. For now, the team hasn’t been able to make any definitive conclusions, but the telescope’s sensitivity picked up on a range of molecules that were present. The research team used Webb to analyze the planet across multiple wavelengths of light to see whether it has an atmosphere. Webb is the only telescope that has the capability to characterize the atmospheres of exoplanets that are the size of Earth. “The fact that it is also a small, rocky planet is impressive for the observatory,” Stevenson said. The existence of the planet has been confirmed by the Webb telescope. This illustration shows the exoplanet LHS 475 b, rocky and almost the exact same size as Earth. The planet’s discovery was announced Wednesday at the 241st meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle. Webb’s pristine data validate it,” Lustig-Yaeger said in a statement. “There is no question that the planet is there. They watched for dips in starlight as the planet passed in front of its host star, called a transit, and watched two transits occur. Previous data collected by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, had suggested the planet might exist.Ī team of researchers, led by staff astronomer Kevin Stevenson and postdoctoral fellow Jacob Lustig-Yaeger at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, observed the target using Webb. The rocky world is 41 light-years away in the Octans constellation. The celestial body, known as LHS 475 b and located outside of our solar system, is almost exactly the same size as Earth.
The James Webb Space Telescope can add another cosmic accomplishment to its list: The space observatory has been used to confirm the existence of an exoplanet for the first time.
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