In the past few decades, the number of exoplanets we’ve found has ballooned to over 5,000, but most of these worlds are gas giants closer to Jupiter than our rocky Earth. But a recent study has turned up evidence of a rocky exoplanet that, like Earth, has an atmosphere made up of more than hydrogen.
By combining observations from the JWST with those from other telescopes, the team found that 55 Cancri e — an exoplanet nearly 9 times more massive than Earth in a system about 41 light years from us — probably has an atmosphere made up of carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide. 55 Cancri e is still a planet extremely unlike our own, though; it’s tidally locked to its star so that one side always faces the star, and its equilibrium temperature is an estimated 2000 Kelvin. That’s actually a lower temperature than expected, indicating that an atmosphere is helping distribute heat around the planet. Based on the JWST measurements, the researchers suggest that the planet’s volatile atmosphere could be supported by outgassing from a magma ocean. (Image credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/R. Crawford; research credit: R. Hu et al.; via Gizmodo)