NASA Finds Two Earth-Sized Exoplanets
On Wednesday, NASA announced its Webb telescope has identified its first exoplanet — any planet outside our solar system — 41 light-years away called LHS 475 b, which is almost exactly the size of Earth with 99% of our planet's diameter.
Facts
- On Wednesday, NASA announced its Webb telescope has identified its first exoplanet — any planet outside our solar system — 41 light-years away called LHS 475 b, which is almost exactly the size of Earth with 99% of our planet's diameter.
- According to NASA headquarters Astrophysics Division director Mark Clampin, the observation of the planet, located in the Octans constellation, "open[s] the door to many future possibilities for studying rocky planet atmospheres."
- Though similar to Earth's size, LHS 475 b is a few hundred degrees hotter than our planet, and the makeup of its atmosphere is still unclear. However, Johns Hopkins University's Jacob Lustig-Yaeger ruled out "a thick methane-dominated atmosphere, similar to that of Saturn’s moon Titan."
- LHS 475 b, which may also have no atmosphere or one solely made of carbon dioxide, was first found through NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) before Webb's spectrograph technology was used to transmit light to probe its temperature, mass, and chemical composition.
- The discovery of LHS 475 b comes as NASA also recently found the planet TOI 700 e — observed on NASA's TESS — orbiting a red dwarf star in the Dorado constellation. This planet is about 95% of Earth's diameter, has a 28-day orbit, and is also likely to be rocky.
- TOI 700 e orbits in the habitable zone of its star, which means it's warm enough for liquid water to form on its surface. This interests scientists because they believe life can only exist on a planet if there's water.
Sources: NPR Online News, Independent, FOX News, and Forbes.
Narratives
- Narrative A, as provided by Business Insider. Research like this not only provides the potential for discovering alien life on other planets but also for finding water sources beyond what we have on Earth. Furthermore, exoplanets light-years away aren't the only planets with this potential, as scientists have discovered water in our own solar system on Jupiter. These discoveries are tremendous breakthroughs in the study of extraterrestrial life and should be continued.
- Narrative B, as provided by Nexin. Though findings like these are extraordinary and should be continued, governments around the world should ensure they're spending money on exploring our own planet and lifting up our own human race at the same time. Private companies such as SpaceX should also be at the forefront of these explorations to further ensure that tax dollars are spent wisely.
