The James Webb Space Telescope has successfully “pierced” the atmosphere of a planet unlike anything seen in our Solar System or neighboring star systems.
According to SciTech Daily, the mysterious planet named WASP-39b is a gas giant comparable in size to Saturn, but orbits its host star, WASP-39, at a distance closer than that of Mercury to the Sun, making it a rare “new species” in the planetary realm: Hot Saturn.
Scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) discovered the exoplanet WASP-39b, located 700 light-years away from Earth, contains a vast amount of water vapor in its atmosphere, nearly three times the amount found on Saturn.
They utilized the Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope to create a detailed spectrum of the atmosphere of WASP-39b, enabling the exploration of evidence for the existence of water. The exoplanet WASP-39b has a mass equivalent to that of Saturn.
However, unlike the giant gas planets in our Solar System, WASP-39b lacks a ring system. WASP-39b completes an orbit around its host star in just 4 days and is situated over 20 times closer to its star than the distance between Earth and the Sun.
Exoplanet WASP-39b is located 700 light-years from Earth. (Image: NASA).
WASP-39b is tidally locked, meaning one side of the planet always faces its star. The temperature on the daylight side reaches up to 776.7 degrees Celsius. Strong winds carry heat from the daytime side across the planet, making the nighttime side quite warm as well.
However, now thanks to the “all-seeing eye” of the latest and most powerful James Webb Space Telescope, primarily operated by NASA with support from ESA and CSA (the European and Canadian space agencies), the mysterious world in the “sea of clouds” of this “Hot Saturn” is beginning to be revealed.
Astronomer Natalie Batalha from the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), who coordinates the new research led by NASA, stated that the findings just collected will “change the game.”
For the first time, signs of SO2 have been detected in the atmosphere of the exoplanet, a molecule produced from chemical reactions triggered by high-energy light from its host star, similar to how Earth’s ozone layer is formed.
According to researcher Shang-Min Tsai from the University of Oxford, the lead author, this is the first concrete evidence of photochemical reactions on the exoplanet. Additionally, James Webb has also found clear signs of sodium, potassium, water vapor, CO2, and more in this unique atmosphere.
The ability to monitor chemical reactions in an atmosphere 700 light-years away demonstrates that this super telescope is capable of capturing chemical signatures and reactions that may relate to life—something scientists hope for with a long list of Earth-like exoplanets already identified.
As a hot Saturn, it is almost certain that WASP-39b does not harbor life, but it serves as an excellent laboratory for exploring the chemical composition of a distant exoplanet, including those potentially habitable planets located just a few dozen light-years away.
The new discoveries about WASP-39b are detailed in five different scientific papers, three of which have been published in journals, while two are awaiting peer review.
