When the James Webb Space Telescope begins science operations this summer, it will be used to investigate a wide variety of objects. One of the big scientific goals is to learn more about exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system, and in particular to look at exoplanet atmospheres. It is very difficult to tell whether an exoplanet has an atmosphere or not, but the sensitive instruments that will be used by the Webb telescope will be able to detect these atmospheres and learn more about distant planets.
The deputy project scientist for exoplanet science, Knicole Col, shared more about this work in a recent NASA post.
One specific exoplanet observation that will be done with Webb involves collecting observations over the course of a planet. The amount of energy received by the planet from HD 80606 b is between 1 to 950 times what Earth receives from the Sun! This results in extreme temperature variations, which are predicted to cause clouds to rapidly form and evaporate in the planet's atmosphere on very short timescales.
To learn more about the dramatic atmospheric variations, the team will use the Near InfraRed Spectrograph or NIRSpec instrument.
In its first cycle of research, Webb will look at the atmospheres of Earth-like or Terrestrial planets, examine hot rocky exoplanets covered in volcanoes, investigate the disks of matter from which planets form, and look at extreme worlds close to Earth.
This builds on work done by current exoplanet-hunting telescopes like the TESS, with TESS and other surveys continuing to discover additional planets in our galaxy at a regular pace.
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