“The possibility of DMS in the atmosphere is highly promising, but we are planning to take another look to robustly establish its presence.” The James Webb Space Telescope.
“More observations are needed to determine whether it is in fact DMS that we’re seeing,” said Prof Madhusudhan. The abundance of methane and carbon dioxide – and lack of ammonia – is indicative of an ocean beneath a hydrogen-rich atmosphere, but the findings on DMS are less certain. “Traditionally, the search for life on exoplanets has focused primarily on rocky planets, but Hycean worlds are significantly more conducive to atmospheric observations.” “Our findings underscore the importance of considering diverse habitable environments in the search for life elsewhere,” said Prof Madhusudhan. This means our work here is but an early demonstration of what Webb can observe in habitable zone exoplanets.”Įxoplanets such as K2-18 b, which are of sizes between that of Earth and Neptune, are unlike anything in our solar system and remain poorly understood. “For comparison, one transit observation with Webb provided comparable precision to eight observations with Hubble conducted over a few years in a shorter wavelength range.”Ĭo-author Savvas Constantinou, also from Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy, added: “These results are the product of just two observations of K2-18 b, with many more on the way. “This result was only possible because of the extended wavelength range and unprecedented sensitivity of Webb, which enabled robust detection of spectral features with just two transits,” said Prof Madhusudhan, lead author of a paper being published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters The Astrophysical Journal Letters. During these transits, a tiny fraction of starlight passes through the exoplanet’s atmosphere before reaching Earth, leaving a trace in the stellar spectrum that astronomers can examine.
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