exoplanet atmosphere tagged posts

Astronomers want to collect as much data as possible using as many systems as possible. Sometimes that requires coordination between instruments. The teams that run the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the upcoming Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey (Ariel) missions will have plenty of opportunity for that once both telescopes are online in the early 2030s. A new paper, available in pre-print on arXiv, from the Ariel-JWST Synergy Working Group details just how exactly the two systems can work together to better analyze exoplanets.

JWST has already been at the center of media attention since even before its launch in late 2021...

The JWST just scored another first: a detailed molecular and chemical portrait of a distant world’s skies. 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 and Spitzer, previously have revealed isolated ingredients of this broiling planet’s atmosphere, the new readings provide a full menu of atoms, molecules, and even signs of active chemistry and clouds.

“The clarity of...

An international collaboration of astronomers led by a researcher from the Astrobiology Center and Queen’s University Belfast, and including researchers from Trinity College Dublin, has detected a new chemical signature in the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet (a planet that orbits a star other than our Sun).

The hydroxyl radical (OH) was found on the dayside of the exoplanet WASP-33b. This planet is a so-called ‘ultra-hot Jupiter’, a gas-giant planet orbiting its host star much closer than Mercury orbits the Sun and therefore reaching atmospheric temperatures of more than 2,500° C (hot enough to melt most metals).

The lead researcher based at the Astrobiology Center and Queen’...

They say variety is the spice of life, and now new discoveries from Johns Hopkins researchers suggest that a certain elemental ‘variety’ – sulfur – is indeed a ‘spice’ that can perhaps point to signs of life.

These findings from the researchers’ lab simulations reveal that sulfur can significantly impact observations of far-flung planets beyond the solar system; the results have implications for the use of sulfur as a sign for extraterrestrial life, as well as affect how researchers should interpret data about planetary atmospheres.

A report of the findings was published today in Nature Astronomy...