Telescope could reveal atmospheres of Earth-like exoplanets

NASA's next orbiting telescope could tell us whether any exoplanets are habitable, according to a study by an Oxford University researcher. Exoplanets orbit a star other than the Sun, a stellar remnant, or a brown dwarf. Nearly 2000 have been discovered to date but we currently have very little information about what they are like. But the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which has been proposed as a successor to the Hubble Space Telescope for launch in 2018 and will study the universe in infrared wavelengths, could give us a first glimpse into the atmospheres of Earth-like exoplanets. Dr Barstow, a post-doctoral researcher in Planetary Physics at the University of Oxford, presented her research to the National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno, Wales on 8 July. She told the audience that JWST may be able to differentiate between a planet with a clement, Earth-like atmosphere and one with more hostile conditions such as are found on our neighbouring planet Venus. Different gases have already been identified successfully in the atmospheres of several large, hot, Jupiter-sized planets by studying tiny variations in the starlight that passes through their atmospheres when they cross in front of their parent stars.