Using the James Webb Space Telescope, a team of astronomers studied the properties of a planet-forming disk around a young and very low-mass star. The results reveal the richest hydrocarbon composition seen to date in a protoplanetary disk, including the first extrasolar detection of ethane and a relatively low abundance of oxygen-bearing species. By including previous similar detections, this finding confirms a trend of disks around very low-mass stars to be chemically distinct from those around more massive stars like the Sun, influencing the atmospheres of planets forming there.
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