4 articles
When a planet crosses its star, a sliver of light filters through its atmosphere and certain colors vanish - the fingerprints of its gases. That faint signal is how the search for life beyond Earth actually works, and why a promising result is never proof.
For the first time, astronomers have found that salt clouds are essential to explaining a planet's atmosphere. James Webb's two-hour study of GJ 504b could reshape how scientists model cold giant worlds.
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has recorded the sharpest view yet of HD 80606 b - a gas giant 217 light-years away whose temperature rockets by 1,100°F as it sweeps past its host star, revealing methane and carbon dioxide in its rapidly shifting atmosphere.
Using its Mid-Infrared Instrument, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope identified methane and anomalously high carbon dioxide on comet 3I/ATLAS - a visitor from another star system - the first chemical fingerprint ever obtained from interstellar material.
