New Webb Space Telescope 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 WASP-39 b, a 'hot Saturn' located around 700 light-ye
This illustration depicts the exoplanet WASP-39 b and its star. Credit: Melissa Weiss/Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
“We had predicted that we were going to see many of those signals, but still, when I first saw the data, I was in awe,” López-Morales adds. The suite of discoveries is detailed in a set of five new submitted scientific papers, available on the preprint server arXiv. Among the unprecedented revelations is the first detection in an exoplanet atmosphere of sulfur dioxide, a molecule produced from chemical reactions triggered by high-energy light from the planet’s parent star. On Earth, the protective ozone layer in the upper atmosphere is created in a similar way.
The atmospheric composition of the hot gas giant exoplanet WASP-39 b has been revealed by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. This graphic shows four transmission spectra from three of Webb’s instruments operated in four instrument modes. At upper left, data from NIRISS shows fingerprints of potassium , water , and carbon monoxide . At upper right, data from NIRCam shows a prominent water signature.
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