New observations with the James Webb space telescope gave indications that a world similar to Earth within the habitable zone of its star, 40-year-old away, can host an atmosphere.
‘Trappist-1 E’, the planet in the system that orbits the rocky dwarf trappist 1, is of particular interest because the presence of liquid water, neither too hot nor too cold, is theoretically viable, but only if the planet has an atmosphere.
The investigators pointed to the powerful instrument NIRSPEC (infrared spectrograph, Near-Infred Spectrograph) of the space telescope James Webb (JWST) for the system while the planet and passed in front of its star.
The stellar light that crosses the planet’s atmosphere, if present, will be partially absorbed, and the corresponding reductions in the light spectrum that reaches the JWST report astronomers about which chemicals are present there.
Handling an atmosphere is a possibility
The initial results, now published in two scientific articles in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, indicated several potential scenarios, including the possibility of an atmosphere, PHYS.ORG reported by Europa Press agency.
Hannah Wakeford, an associate professor of astrophysics at the University of Bristol, UK, helped conceive the structure of observation of the telescope to ensure that scientists could obtain fundamental data.
JWST’s infrared instruments provide unprecedented details, helping to understand much more about the factors that determine the atmosphere and surface environment of a planet as well as its composition.
Although there are several possibilities for the planet ‘and’, researchers are confident that they do not retain their original atmosphere.
David Grant, co -author of both studies and former senior researcher at the University of Bristol, stressed that “discoveries also rule out the presence of a primordial atmosphere based on hydrogen.”
“This is the gaseous wisdom, consisting mainly of hydrogen, which surrounded a planet in its early stages of formation. It is thought that such atmospheres are common on both giant and terrestrial planets at the beginning of the solar system,” he said.
Wakeford added that since Trappist-1 is a very active star with frequent eruptions, it is not surprising that star radiation has destroyed any atmosphere of hydrogen and helium that the planet may have formed.
Many planets, including Earth, form a denser secondary atmosphere after losing their primary atmosphere. It is possible that the planet ‘is never able to do so and do not have a secondary atmosphere, but there is an equal hypothesis that there is one, the scientist added.
The presence of a secondary atmosphere means that liquid water can also exist to the surface and, if applicable, the researchers believe it would be accompanied by a greenhouse effect, similar to that of Earth, in which several gases, especially carbon dioxide, maintain stable atmosphere and the planet heated.
The second article details the work of theoretical interpretation, and the lead author, Ana Glidden, a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), stressed that “the planet’s atmosphere is unlikely to be dominated by carbon dioxide, such as the thick atmosphere of Venus and the rarefilled atmosphere of Mars”.
“However, it is important to note that there are no direct parallels with our solar system. Trappist-1 is a very different star from our sun, and the surrounding planetary system is also distinct,” he said.
