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NASA was able to determine an Earth-like planet some 40 light years away has no evidence of an atmosphere that would support life. Image courtesy of NASA.
March 27 (UPI) -- Scientists observing the universe through NASA's James Webb telescope said they made a breakthrough in the detection of light from a so-called exoplanet but were disappointed the Earth-like entity has no evidence of an atmosphere.
Since early 2017, scientists have been looking at seven rocky planets orbiting a dwarf star some 40 light years from our own planet. Looking at just one of those -- Trappist-1 b -- an international team was able to find infrared light emanating from the entity.
"No previous telescopes have had the sensitivity to measure such dim mid-infrared light," said Thomas Green, an astrophysicist at NASA and the lead author of the study on the find published in the journal Nature.
Measuring the energy from that infrared found Trappist-1 b was hot, with a daytime temperature of about 450 degrees Fahrenheit and void of any significant atmosphere.
"The result marks an important step in determining whether planets orbiting small active stars like Trappist-1 can sustain atmospheres needed to support life," NASA explained.
It also shows Webb's ability to detect heat energy given off in the form of infrared light. Researchers just last week observed silicate clouds, water, methane, and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a distant planet known as VHS 1256 b, which is about 40 light years from Earth.
The discovery is the most number of different molecules ever seen collected on one planet outside of our solar system, scientists say.
The cluster of planets associated with Trappist, meanwhile, are similar in size and mass to the inner-most planets of our own solar system and, while they're closer to their own star than planets such as Mercury is to the Sun, they all receive a comparable amount of energy.
Elsa Ducrot at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, a co-author of the study, said studying systems like this give astronomers a better understanding of planetary atmospheres.
"If we want to understand habitability around M stars (dwarfs), the Trappist-1 system is a great laboratory," she said.
