Syllabus:
GS-3: Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nano-technology, bio-technology and issues relating to intellectual property rights.
Context:
NASA’s James Webb Telescope found a planet TRAPPIST-1e, which is a part of TRAPPIST-1 that may have an Earth-like atmosphere and liquid water, making it potentially habitable.
About the Study
- The James Webb Space Telescope’s near-infrared spectrograph studied TRAPPIST-1e’s atmosphere to assess its potential to host life.
- TRAPPIST-1e may have a nitrogen-rich atmosphere like Earth’s, though follow-up studies are needed to confirm this.
- It could potentially have liquid water on its surface, either in the form of an ocean or ice.
- Upcoming observations aim to clarify the planet’s atmospheric composition and assess its capacity to support liquid water.
- The data suggests an atmosphere that is not rich in carbon dioxide, ruling out Venus-like and Mars-like conditions.
About TRAPPIST-1
- It is a small red dwarf star system.
- It is an M-type star which is much redder, cooler and dimmer than the Sun.
- It features at least seven planets and is 40 light-years away from Earth.
- It was discovered in 2016 and some of its planets lies in the Goldilocks zone, which is essentially a habitable zone around the star.
- Two of the three planets in the Goldilocks zone were found to have no atmosphere..
Exoplanet
- An exoplanet is any planet that exist beyond our solar system.
- Most of them orbit other stars, but some rogue planets, drift freely through space without being gravitationally bound to any star.
TRAPPIST-1 e:
- It is a rocky, Earth-sized exoplanet, located in the habitable zone of its red dwarf star, TRAPPIST-1 where liquid water could potentially exist on its surface.
- It lies in the Goldilocks zone, which is essentially a habitable zone around the star
- It orbits the TRAPPIST-1 star in just over six Earth days and has a density similar to Earth’s.
- Its discovery was announced in 2017.
James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
- It is the largest and most powerful space telescope ever built, designed to observe the universe in infrared light to study the first stars and galaxies, the formation of planetary systems, and to analyse exoplanet atmospheres.
- A collaborative effort by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), launched on December 25, 2021.
- It orbits the Sun 1.5 million kilometers away from the Earth at what is called the second Lagrange point or L2.
- It extends the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope, with longer wavelength coverage and greatly improved sensitivity.