At NASA, with the help of the Webb telescope, an exoplanet the size of the Earth was studied
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New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope show that the Earth-like exoplanet TRAPPIST-1b is unlikely to have a similar atmosphere. This is evidenced by the data of a new study published in Nature, writes Science Alert. The exoplanet has 1.4 times the mass and 1.1 times the radius of Earth. However, its temperature reaches 230°C. This is due to its close proximity to the main red dwarf star: it orbits it in only 1.5 days and receives 4 times more stellar radiation than Earth. Another 6 exoplanets revolve around the red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1. But so far scientists have not been able to investigate whether they are suitable for life. Exoplanet. Photo: Webb telescope “It is easier to characterize terrestrial planets around smaller, cooler stars. If we want to understand the possibility of habitability around M stars, the TRAPPIST-1 system is an excellent ‘laboratory’. Thanks to it, we can study the atmospheres of rocky planets,” explains astronomer Elsa Ducrot of the French Commission for Alternative Energy and Atomic Energy (CEA). Scientists discovered TRAPPIST-1, which has seven rocky exoplanets, in 2017. They orbit a red M-dwarf star at a distance of 40 light years from us. Three of the seven exoplanets are located in the so-called habitable zone of the star – at a distance that is not so close that all the liquid water on its surface would evaporate or freeze. “There are ten times more of these stars in the Milky Way than stars like the Sun, and twice as likely to have rocky surfaces. But they’re also very active – they’re bright when they’re young and emit flares and X-rays that can destroy atmosphere,” says astrophysicist Thomas Green of NASA’s Ames Research Center. Temperature scale of exoplanets. Photo: NASA Thanks to the Webb telescope, it was possible for the first time to measure the temperature of an exoplanet by the amount of infrared light it emits. “This planet is tidally locked, with one side facing the star all the time and the other in constant darkness. If it has an atmosphere to circulate and redistribute heat, it will be cooler during the day than without an atmosphere,” says CEA astronomer Pierre- Olivier Lagage from CEA. The researchers were able to record five secondary eclipses for TRAPPIST-1b and extract from these events a daytime temperature of about 230 degrees Celsius. This temperature, although lower than on the “day side” of Mercury in the Solar System, does not indicate the presence of an atmosphere and is not suitable for life. Read also: NASA’s telescope photographed the “galactic jellyfish”. PHOTO
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