Baltimore: The James Webb Space Telescope has, for the first time, directly detected carbon dioxide on exoplanets, observing it within the multi-planetary system HR 8799, located approximately 130 light-years from Earth.

According to Qatar News Agency, a research team from Johns Hopkins University utilized tools to block the intense light of the star, enhancing observation of its surrounding environment. The telescope employed the transit method, capturing slight brightness variations caused by the planet passing in front of its star and analyzing the filtered light through its atmosphere. The findings revealed carbon dioxide in the form of tiny icy molecules in deep space.

William Palmer, an astrophysicist at the university and lead author of the study, highlighted that the presence of carbon dioxide in the relatively young HR 8799 system, 30 million years old compared to the 4.6-billion-year-old solar system, provides key evidence that exoplanets can form similarly. While the gas giant planets in HR 8799 cannot harbor life, they may possess moons capable of doing so.

Palmer added that in the solar system, it is believed that Jupiter and Saturn formed through a process where small icy particles coalesced into solid cores, absorbing gas to form giant planets. This is what NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope aims to explore using its coronagraph, scheduled for launch in 2027.

Notably, in 2022, the James Webb Space Telescope successfully detected carbon dioxide (an essential element for life) on the exoplanet WASP-39.