The “James Webb” space telescope of the US space agency “NASA” discovered its first planet that looks very similar to our planet Earth, with almost the same size and the same rocky terrain, according to the newspaper “The Independent”.
This discovery is expected to be just the beginning of a group of planets found by James Webb. In addition, the telescope will allow these planets to be seen in much finer detail than ever before, as it is the only telescope capable of distinguishing the atmospheres of distant planets, according to the newspaper.
The planet is classified outside the solar system, and it constitutes 99 percent of the diameter of the Earth. Although it has Earth-like terrain, scientists do not yet know if it has an atmosphere.
Although the team cannot, at the present time, reach a definitive answer, they ruled out the existence of a dense atmosphere dominated by methane gas, as is the case in the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan.
And the James Webb telescope revealed that the planet, located 41 light-years away, is “a few hundred degrees warmer than Earth, and it completes its orbit in two days.”
There is still a lot for scientists to discover regarding the planet called “LHS 475 b”, especially since such planets are not visible to space telescopes, but “James Webb” proved once once more the strength of his technology.
“These first observational results from an Earth-sized rocky planet open the door to many future possibilities for studying the atmospheres of rocky planets using Webb,” Mark Clampin, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA headquarters in Washington, said in a statement. He added, “James Webb is bringing us closer and closer to a new understanding of Earth-like worlds outside our solar system, and the mission is still in its infancy.”
“The confirmation of this rocky planet highlights the precision of the mission’s instruments,” said Kevin Stephenson of Johns Hopkins University, who helped lead the work. “It is only the first of many discoveries it will make.”
