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    TRAPPIST-1 planetary system tagged posts

    When a comet hits a tidally locked exo-Earth

    May 1, 2025, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    When a comet hits a tidally locked exo-Earth
    An ultraviolet image of the train of Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet fragments impacting Jupiter’s atmosphere in 1994. The black dot near the top is Jupiter’s moon Io. Credit: Hubble Space Telescope Comet Team, NASA

    Comets that have hit Earth have been a mixed bag. Early in Earth’s history, during the solar system’s chaotic beginning, they were likely the source of our planet’s water, ultimately making up about 0.02% of the planet’s mass. (Mars and Venus received a similar fraction.)

    Comets brought complex organic molecules and the biosphere, but later posed a threat to the same in cometary collisions...

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    James Webb Space Telescope could begin learning about TRAPPIST-1 atmospheres in a year

    August 22, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    New research from UW astronomers models how telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope, will be able to study the planets of the intriguing TRAPPIST-1 system.
    New research from UW astronomers models how telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope will be able to study the planets of the intriguing TRAPPIST-1 system.NASA

    Astronomers are using the intriguing TRAPPIST-1 planetary system as a kind of laboratory to model not the planets themselves, but how the coming James Webb Space Telescope might detect and study their atmospheres, on the path toward looking for life beyond Earth.

    New research from astronomers at the University of Washington uses the intriguing TRAPPIST-1 planetary system as a kind of laboratory to model not the planets themselves, but how the coming James Webb Space Telescope might detect and study their atmospheres, on the path toward looking for life beyond Earth.

    The study, led by Jacob Lustig-Yaeger, a UW do...

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