Webb Telescope Finds Water on Distant Gas Giant Exoplanet, Starts New Era - NASA

WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th July, 2022) The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) orbiting one million miles from Earth has captured the signature of water on a giant gas planet which orbits a star 1,150 light years away, first images from the telescope released by NASA revealed on Tuesday.

"JWST has captured the distinct signature of water, along with evidence for clouds and haze, in the atmosphere surrounding a hot, puffy gas giant planet orbiting a distant Sun-like star," NASA said in a press release. NASA identified the planet as WAP-96 b.

The image is the most detailed of its kind ever taken and it confirms the JWST's unprecedented ability to analyze atmospheres hundreds of light-years away, NASA said.

The space agency described the impact of the first Webb images as "the dawn of a new era in astronomy."

Another image, called by NASA "Cosmic Cliffs and Sea of Stars," reveals baby stars in the Carina Nebula where ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds shape colossal walls of dust and gas," the space agency said.

On Monday, NASA released a Webb image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, known as Webb's First Deep Field that was revealed personally by President Joe Biden during a White House event, filled with thousands of galaxies including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared.