Free Astronomy Magazine March-April 2023

42 ASTRO PUBLISHING future possibilities for studying rocky planet atmospheres with Webb,” agreed Mark Clampin, Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquar- ters in Washington. “Webb is bring- ing us closer and closer to a new understanding of Earth-like worlds outside our solar system, and the mission is only just getting started.” Among all operating telescopes, only Webb is capable of characterizing the atmospheres of Earth-sized exo- planets. The team attempted to as- sess what is in the planet’s atmos- phere by analyzing its transmis- sion spectrum. Although the data show that this is an Earth- sized terres- t r i a l planet, they do not yet know if it has an atmos- phere. “The observatory’s data are beautiful,” said Erin May, also of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. “The telescope is so sensitive that it can easily detect a range of molecules, but we can’t yet make any definitive conclusions about the planet’s atmos- phere.” Although the team can’t conclude Webb confirms its first exoplanet by NASA/ESA/CSA Claire Blome Christine Pulliam R esearchers confirmed an exo- planet, a planet that orbits an- other 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. The re- search team is led by Kevin Steven- son and Jacob Lustig-Yaeger, both of the Johns Hopkins University Ap- plied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. The team chose to observe this tar- get with Webb after carefully re- viewing targets of interest from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which hinted at the planet’s existence. Webb’s Near-In- frared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) cap- tured the planet easily and clearly with only two transit observations. “There is no question that the planet is there. Webb’s pristine data vali- date it,” said Lustig-Yaeger. “The fact that it is also a small, rocky planet is impressive for the observatory,” Stevenson added. “These first ob- servational results from an Earth- size, rocky planet open the door to many MARCH-APRIL 2023