NASA’s Webb Confirms Its First Exoplanet

Excerpt: “Researchers confirmed an exoplanet, a planet that orbits another star, using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope for the first time. Formally classified as LHS 475 b, the planet is almost exactly the same size as our own, clocking in at 99% of Earth’s diameter. … Among all operating telescopes, only Webb is capable of characterizing the atmospheres of Earth-sized exoplanets. The team attempted to assess what is in the planet’s atmosphere by analyzing its transmission spectrum. Although the data shows that this is an Earth-sized terrestrial planet, they do not yet know if it has an atmosphere.”

News Release

stsci-01gnvwz3ckz9dt4ev4n2tpmrph — Researchers used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) to observe exoplanet LHS 475 b. (Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, L. Hustak (STScI))