NASA has revealed that the James Webb Space Telescope has detected signs of water on a planet more than a thousand light-years away.
The US space agency said the multi-billion dollar space telescope has “recorded the signature of water” on the giant gas planet WASP 96-b, orbiting a star 1150 light-years away.
“For the first time, we have discovered evidence of clouds in the atmosphere of this exoplanet,” NASA tweeted.
The unveiling comes as NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) share the first set of full-color images captured by the telescope, capturing the deepest images of the universe ever captured.
The ultra-high-resolution images also show life cycles of stars and galaxies interacting.
The incredible new batch of images features a frothy blue-orange shot of a dying star.
Composite image of the Cosmic Cliffs in the Carina Nebula from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. (Photo credit Reuters)
Stephan’s Quintet, a collection of five galaxies, as seen from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (photo credit: Reuters)
The first image from the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope was released Monday at the White House — a tangle of distant galaxies that went deeper into the cosmos than humanity has ever seen.
The four additional photos released today feature more cosmic beauty shots.
Webb has revealed the unequivocal signature of water, indications of haze and evidence for clouds thought not to exist based on previous observations. The transmission spectrum of the hot gas giant WASP-96 b, was created using Webb’s Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (Pic credit: NASA)
With one exception, the latest images showed parts of the universe seen by other telescopes. But Webb’s sheer power, Earth’s distant location and use of the infrared light spectrum showed them in new light.
“Each image is a new discovery, and each one will give humanity a view of humanity that we’ve never seen before,” said NASA administrator Bill Nelson, rhapsodizing images that “show the formation of stars, black holes devouring.”
Webb’s use of the infrared light spectrum allows the telescope to see through the cosmic dust and “see light from distant light from the corners of the universe,” he said.
“We have really changed the understanding of our universe,” said Josef Aschbacher, director general of the European Space Agency.
In this April 13, 2017 photo provided by NASA, engineers lift the mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope using a crane at the Goddard Space Flight Center (Laura Betz/NASA via AP, File)
The European and Canadian space agencies, together with NASA, have built the powerful telescope.
The images revealed today show:
- The Southern Ring Nebula, sometimes referred to as ‘eight-burst’. An expanding gas cloud surrounding a dying star can be seen about 2,500 light-years away. A light year is 5.8 trillion miles.
- The Carina Nebula, one of the brightest star nurseries in the sky, is about 7,600 light-years away.
- Five galaxies in a cosmic dance, 290 million light-years away. Stephan’s Quintet was first seen 225 years ago in the constellation Pegasus.
- A bluish giant planet called WASP-96b, with a signature of water detected in its atmosphere. It is about the size of Saturn and is 1150 light-years away. A gas planet, it is not a candidate for life elsewhere, but a prime target for astronomers.
Built to view his subjects primarily in the infrared spectrum, Webb is about 100 times more sensitive than its 30-year-old predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, which operates primarily at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths.
The much larger light-gathering surface of Webb’s primary mirror—a series of 18 hexagonal segments of gold-plated beryllium metal—allows him to observe objects at greater distances, ie further back in time, than Hubble or any other telescope.