Carbon Dioxide Discovered on an Exoplanet

Thanks to James Webb, the highest technology space telescope in history, which took 16 years to build and was launched in December 2021, the discoveries continue without slowing down. Now, carbon dioxide has been discovered in the atmosphere of one of the millions of exoplanets located outside the solar system, that is, orbiting another star.

Previous discoveries showed that exoplanets could have atmospheres and that different materials could be present in this atmosphere. It is now certain that carbon dioxide, which is the backbone of life on Earth, can also exist on planets outside the Solar System.

Meet the planet WASP-39b, discovered to have carbon dioxide: it orbits a Sun-like star 700 light-years away, is the size of Saturn, and contains elements such as water vapor, sodium and potassium.

WASP-39 star and planet WASP-39b (Illustration) [email protected]

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The planet WASP-39b was actually discovered in 2011 thanks to the WASP project with telescopes on Earth. After this project, it was determined that the exoplanet, which was closely marked with space telescopes such as Hubble and Spitzer, has an atmosphere and this atmosphere is rich in water vapor, sodium and potassium. Thanks to James Webb’s more advanced infrared observation capability, it has been confirmed that there is now carbon dioxide on the planet.

Also, the planet WASP-39b is 8 times closer to its star than the Sun-Mercury distance, so it is in a hot region. For this reason, a planet with a fast orbital motion is equal to a little more than 4 Earth days a year. Because of all these features, the planet is also compared to the ‘hot Jupiter’.

The existence of carbon dioxide is also an important step for the discovery of extraterrestrial life:

Another WASP-39b illustration [email protected]

Carbon dioxide, which is a part of the natural cycle on Earth, is also intensely secreted due to human activities. But this discovery focuses on the important role that carbon dioxide plays in the chemical cycle of life. Of course, the only goal is not to find traces of extraterrestrial life, but to understand how an exoplanet formed and developed.

The discovery was not made by 2-3 scientists in a room looking into space with a telescope. More than 300 scientists worked on the team:

“This was also an experiment we’re very proud of for open science. More than 300 scientists from all over the world participated. Data on this research can be found here.”

Open science is done through the collective observation or testing of data made available to all volunteer scientists working in a field. The scientific paper of the research has been published on arXiv and is expected to be published by the journal Nature soon.

You can find other discoveries made by James Webb and information that will open your horizons below: