163 light-years from Earth, the Weber Telescope observed an exoplanet with methane in its atmosphere.

CTOnews.com, Nov. 25 (Xinhua)-- NASA astronomers used the James Weber Space Telescope (JWST) to observe the atmosphere of an exoplanet named WASP-80 b and found methane and water vapor in its atmosphere.

Discovered in 2013, WASP-80 b is located 163 light-years from Earth in the constellation Eagle. It is about the size of Jupiter but only about half the mass of Jupiter. Its temperature is about 825 Kelvin, which is higher than any other planet in the solar system.

Astronomers currently mainly use space-based spectroscopy to detect methane, and water vapor has been found in the atmospheres of more than a dozen planets.

The researchers in charge of the study are Louis Wilbanks and Michael Lane of Arizona State University's School of Earth and Space Exploration, and Taylor Bell, a researcher at the Bay area Environment Institute (BAERI).

"this is the first time we have seen such obvious characteristics of methane in the spectrum of exoplanets in the transit system, which is not much different from that of the giant planets in the solar system half a century ago," Verbanks said.

Using the Weber Space Telescope's NIRCam imager, the team observed transmission and emission spectra with a span of 2.4-4.0 μ m, both of which showed strong evidence of the presence of methane.

CTOnews.com attached the reference address of the paper: Bell, T.J., Welbanks, L., Schlawin, E. et al. Methane throughout the atmosphere of the warm exoplanet WASP-80b. Nature 623709-712 (2023). Https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06687-0