BALTIMORE — When the James Webb Space Telescope was first dreamed up, exoplanets hadn’t even been discovered yet. Now the observatory is showing astronomers what it can learn about planets orbiting other stars — including the small ones.
Since its launch in December 2021, JWST had already “sniffed” the atmospheres of Jupiter-sized planets orbiting searingly close to their stars (SN: 8/26/22). Those intense worlds are interesting, but not the places where astronomers hope to look for signs of life. The telescope is now getting glimpses of atmospheres on known exoplanets of the more terrestrial persuasion, astronomers reported December 13 and 14 at the First Science Results from JWST conference.
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