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Scientists have found other rocky, Earth-like exoplanets, but none that we can definitively say have atmospheres. Finding these planets will reveal insights into how such atmospheres are formed and retained, so that we can better predict which planets could be habitable.
A study conducted by University of Chicago PhD student Qiao Xue with Prof. Jacob Bean's group has demonstrated a new way to determine if faraway exoplanets have an atmosphere—and showed that it was simpler and more efficient than previous methods. The new technique, when applied to more planets, has the potential to help us learn more about patterns in atmosphere formation.
"When we look at a large enough data set, as we will this year with the James Webb Space Telescope, we are hoping to find trends to help us understand more about atmosphere formation—and what makes planets habitable," said Xue.
Scientists cannot, however, directly image rocky, Earth-like planets close to their stars. Instead, they must piece together different clues, such as the fluctuations in light as the planet moves around its host star.
In the study, the scientists used a method that was proposed in 2019 by a collaboration including Bean and Megan Mansfield (PhD'21, now with the University of Arizona) to look for atmospheres. The approach uses the difference in temperature between an exoplanet measured at its hottest and the calculated temperature of how hot it could theoretically be.
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