The world’s most powerful telescope has made its first observations of a planet beyond our solar system, heralding a new era of astronomy in which distant worlds can be scanned for signs of life.
The observations, from Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope, give new insights into the formation of the planet, a hot gas giant called Wasp-39b that is 700 light years away in the Virgo constellation. They also provide the first clearcut evidence for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting a distant star.
