A University of Arizona researcher is part of the team that used the powerful new James Webb Space Telescope or JWST to find a new planet.
The planet does not have a catchy science fiction sort of name. Astronomers simply call it LHS 475 b.The telescope works with infrared light so it didn’t see the planet as human eyes might. It detected the planet when it partially blocked starlight. Exoplanets—planets outside our solar system have been detected before but this is the first detected by JWST.
UArizona planetary scientist Sarah Moran worked on the study. She says one of the most interesting things about the planet is it’s almost exactly the same size as Earth—but that does not mean it would be a good place to live. “It’s much hotter than Earth. It’s about six hundred degrees fahrenheit so way too hot to live on but it’s the same size so in some ways very similar to Earth but in other’s completely different.”
UArizona scientists designed some of the key instruments that make the telescope so powerful. The University is a major player in astronomy and planetary sciences.
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