In the case of Webb, its mirror is nearly 60 times larger than previous space telescopes, including the retired Spitzer Space Telescope. Hubble observed the universe 450 million years after the Big Bang.Įach space telescope builds on the knowledge gained from the previous one. Launched in December, the Webb is allowing researchers to get four times closer to the Big Bang than the Hubble Space Telescope, according to Marcia Rieke, a regents professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory and principal investigator for the Near Infrared Camera on the Webb telescope. In addition to investigating the wealth of planets outside of our solar system, the James Webb Space Telescope is peering back to some of the earliest galaxies that formed after the Big Bang and the very structure of the universe itself. The James Webb telescope on March 5, 2020. In fact, the task of identifying signs of life on other planets is already slated for future telescopes, like the one outlined in the recently released Astro2020 decadal survey that will look at 25 potentially habitable exoplanets. These planets are connected with an intriguing idea: What if life happens differently outside of Earth? And it's something that the successors of this telescope could investigate in the decades to come. Signs of life: The Webb telescope will look inside the atmospheres of exoplanets orbiting much smaller stars than our sun. So far, the study of these bodies hasn't revealed another Earth, and it's unlikely that even with technology like the Webb, there won't be "a true Earth analog" out there, said Klaus Pontoppidan, Webb project scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. Since the first exoplanets were discovered in the 1990s, many have wondered if we might find another Earth out there, a place called Planet B. Webb will peer into the very atmospheres of exoplanets, some of which are potentially habitable. But scientists have only just begun to scratch the surface of these planets outside the solar system. And of the thousands of known exoplanets, none quite match up with the planets in our cosmic backyard. “You’re actually seeing bumps and wiggles that indicate the presence of water vapor in the atmosphere of this exoplanet,” she explained.Ĭould there be life in space? Scientists hope the James Webb Space Telescope will help them get closer to the answer.Īstronomers have yet to find a solar system quite like ours. The spectrum looks like “a bunch of bumps and wiggles,” which Knicole Colon, a NASA astrophysicist, said are “full of information.”
Webb's spectrum includes "the distinct signature of water, along with evidence for clouds and haze, in the atmosphere surrounding a hot, puffy gas giant planet orbiting a distant Sun-like star," according to NASA. It has half the mass of Jupiter and completes an orbit around its star every 3.4 days. The spectrum includes different wavelengths of light that can reveal new information about the planet.ĭiscovered in 2014, WASP-96b is located 1,150 light-years from Earth. Webb's study of the giant gas planet WASP-96b is the most detailed spectrum of an exoplanet to date. The observation, which reveals the presence of specific gas molecules based on tiny decreases in the brightness of precise colors of light, is the most detailed of its kind to date, demonstrating Webb’s unprecedented ability to analyze atmospheres hundreds of light-years away.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured the distinct signature of water, along with evidence for clouds and haze, in the atmosphere surrounding a hot, puffy gas giant planet orbiting a distant Sun-like star.
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