exoplanet

WASP-39b, a gas giant about 700 light-years away, is turning out to be quite the exoplanetary treasure.Earlier this year, WASP-39b was the subject of the first-ever detection of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet outside the Solar System.Now, an in-depth analysis of data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has given us an absolute goldmine of information: the most detailed look at an exoplanet atmosphere yet.The results include information about WASP-39b's clouds, the first-ever direct detection of…

Astronomers recently discovered a hefty exoplanet orbiting a star similar to our sun. At just 15 million years old, this chunky planet is a baby by galactic standards, old, but it has researchers puzzled due to its tremendous density. The planet, called HD 114082 b, is similar in size to Jupiter, but seems to have eight times its mass. It’s common for astronomers to discover gas giants similar to or larger than Jupiter, but it’s very unusual to discover a planet this dense and heavy.  “Compared to currently accepted…

This week, astronomers announced that they’d found evidence of chemical reactions in the atmosphere of an exoplanet 700 light years away from Earth. Researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope created a detailed chemical portrait of the scorching gases swirling around exoplanet WASP-39b. This “hot Saturn” planet orbits extremely close to its host star, meaning it has high temperatures of up to 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit or 900 degrees Celsius. It is also puffy, with around one quarter the mass of Jupiter but 1.3 times…

A newly found exoplanet just 200 light-years away could shed new light on one of planetary science's strangest mysteries.At around 1.8 times the radius of Earth, the object named TOI-1075b ranks among the biggest examples of a super-Earth exoplanet we've found to date. It also sits solidly in what we call the small-planet radius gap; a seeming deficit of planets between 1.5 and 2 Earth radii. Slightly smaller rocky super-Earths have been found. So have slightly larger worlds bulked up with puffy atmospheres, known as…

New observations of WASP-39 b reveal a never-before-seen molecule in the atmosphere of a planet sulfur dioxide among other details. New observations of WASP-39 b reveal a never-before-seen molecule in the atmosphere of a planet sulfur dioxide among other details.The telescope's array of highly sensitive instruments was trained on the atmosphere of a "hot Saturn" -- a planet about as massive as Saturn orbiting a star some 700 light-years away -- known as WASP-39 b. While JWST and other space telescopes, including Hubble…

Exoplanet WASP-39 b Illustration. Credit: Melissa Weiss/Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & SmithsonianObservations of Exoplanet WASP-39b show fingerprints of atoms and molecules, as well as signs of active chemistry and clouds.WASP-39 b is a planet unlike any in our solar system – a <span class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Saturn</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Saturn is the sixth planet from the sun and has the…

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has provided the most detailed look at the atmosphere of an exoplanet ever. Analyzing data from four instruments, a team of astronomers was able to compile a complete molecular and chemical profile of the planet, including signs of active chemistry.One of the main goals of the Webb telescope is to analyze the atmospheres of exoplanets in more detail than ever before, in the hopes of potentially finding worlds that could – or do – support life. In the telescope’s first data release back in…

Astrophysicists on Earth are no strangers to WASP-39b, an exoplanet orbiting a star about 700 light-years from Earth, though they’ve never actually seen it directly. Now, the Webb Space Telescope has offered fresh insight into this distant world: Its observations have revealed the recipe list for the planet’s toxic atmosphere.WASP-39b is a gas giant about the mass of Saturn and the size of Jupiter, but it orbits its star at about the same distance as Mercury is from the Sun, making the exoplanet very, very hot. The…

Astronomers will soon have a new tool for hunting exoplanets, as the W. M. Keck Observatory’s Keck Planet Finder (KPF) instrument recently took its first observations. KPF’s “first light” observations captured data from Jupiter, demonstrating how the instrument will be able to detect planets beyond our solar system in the future. Located at Maunakea in Hawaiʻi, the new instrument detects exoplanets using the radial velocity method. This works by observing a star and looking for a slight wobble, caused by the gravity…

Exoplanets come in all sorts of sizes and all sorts of densities, from solid rocky planets like Earth or Mars to super-puff planets discovered by Hubble. Now, researchers using the WIYN 3.5-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory have identified a puffy, low-density “marshmallow” planet orbiting a cool red dwarf star. TOI-3757 b, located 580 light-years away, is the lowest-density gas giant planet ever discovered orbiting this kind of star. Red dwarfs are the most common type of star in the galaxy and are…