Observations with JWST’s MIRI detect water vapor, sulfur dioxide, and sand clouds in the atmosphere of WASP-107b. A team of European astronomers, co-led by MPIA researchers, used recent observations made with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to study the atmosphere of the nearby exoplanet WA
This illustration conceptualizes the swirling clouds in the atmosphere of exoplanet VHS 1256 b identified by the James Webb Space Telescope. The planet is
Habitable-zone exoplanet potentially spotted just around the corner in Alpha Centauri using latest telescope technique theregister.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theregister.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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IMAGE: Alpha Centauri A (left) and Alpha Centauri B imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope. Located in the constellation The Centaur, at a distance of 4.3 light-years, the pair of stars. view more
Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble
Imaging planets orbiting around nearby stars, which could potentially harbour life, has become a possibility thanks to the progress made in observational methods by an international team of astronomers. First candidate: Alpha Centauri, a system similar to ours, only 4.3 light years away. This study is the subject of a publication in the journal
Nature Communications.
Efforts to obtain direct images of exoplanets - planets outside our solar system - have so far been hampered by technological limitations, which have led to a bias towards detecting planets much larger than Jupiter, around very young stars and far from the habitable zone, the area in which a planet may have liquid water on its surface, and thus potentially life. The Earth itsel