James Webb found his first Earth-like exoplanet

Located at the L2 Lagrange point, the James Webb Space Telescope has become humanity’s most powerful eye for exploring outer space. By capturing stunning images full of detail and discovering the oldest galaxies to date, James Webb has once again gained important information. This time, it is an exoplanet, the first discovered using a space observatory.

The NASA website describes the discovery. About rocky planet 41 light years away, and also has 99% of the diameter of our Earth. The scientific community has named it LHS 475 b, and this is the first time that a team of researchers has used data from James Webb to confirm the existence of an exoplanet.

Recall that James Webb has already observed exoplanets in the past. In fact, some time ago, he revealed the atmosphere of one of them. But these examples were known even before the launch of the space telescope. Thus we face one of the greatest achievements of the observatory up to date.

Meanwhile, the existence of LHS 475 b was already suspected. Some researchers discovered its possible presence while viewing data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Exploration Satellite. However, it was with James Webb were able to confirm its existence thanks to the NIRSpec tool (near infrared spectrograph).

LHS 475 b, a rocky exoplanet discovered by James Webb, is very similar to our Earth.

The rocky planet discovered by James Webb is almost identical to ours, at least in diameter. In addition, its rocky nature reveals a composition that also resembles the composition of the Earth. According to Mark Clampin, Director of NASA’s Astrophysics Division, “These first observations of an Earth-sized rocky planet open the door to many future possibilities for studying the atmospheres of rocky planets with James Webb.”

“ Webb is bringing us closer to a new understanding of terrestrial worlds beyond the solar system, and the mission has just begun.”

Mark clamp

Of course, there are still many secrets to be revealed about the LHS 475 b. Although James Webb was able to reveal his rocky nature, the exoplanet is still a mystery in terms of its atmosphere. So much so that we still don’t know if they exist, and this is something that will be studied later with an observatory.

What we do know is that this celestial body “looks like” Earth. it’s hundreds of degrees hotter than our planet. Thus, it is likely that instead of a paradise with lakes, oceans and vegetation, we will find a brother of Venus. However, observations will continue until the summer of 2023.

“The observatory data is invaluable. The telescope is so sensitive that it can easily detect a number of molecules, but we still cannot draw any definitive conclusions about the planet’s atmosphere.”

Erin May is an astrophysicist at ESA’s Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.