Atmosphere
TRAPPIST-1 Outer Planets Likely Have Water
The TRAPPIST-1 solar system generated a swell of interest when it was observed several years ago. In 2016, astronomers using the Transiting…
Did You Hear Webb Found Life on an Exoplanet? Not so Fast…
The JWST is astronomers' best tool for probing exoplanet atmospheres. Its capable instruments can dissect the light passing through a…
Is the JWST Now an Interplanetary Meteorologist?
The JWST keeps one-upping itself. In the telescope's latest act of outdoing itself, it examined a distant exoplanet to map…
Measuring the Atmospheres of Other Worlds to See if There are Enough Nutrients for Life
Life on Earth depends on six critical elements: Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorous, and Sulfur. These elements are referred to…
Finding Atmospheres on Red Dwarf Planets Will Take Hundreds of Hours of Webb Time
The JWST is enormously powerful. One of the reasons it was launched is to examine exoplanet atmospheres to determine their…
Improving a 1960s Plan to Explore the Giant Planets
In the 1960s, NASA engineers developed a series of small lifting-body aircraft that could be dropped into the atmosphere of…
Another Hycean Planet Found? TOI-270 d
Hycean planets may be able to host life even though they're outside what scientists consider the regular habitable zone. Their…
Planetary Atmospheres: Why study them? What can they teach us about finding life beyond Earth?
Universe Today has surveyed the importance of studying impact craters, planetary surfaces, exoplanets, astrobiology, solar physics, and comets, and what…
If Exoplanets Have Lightning, it’ll Complicate the Search for Life
Discovering exoplanets is almost routine now. We've found over 5,500 exoplanets, and the next step is to study their atmospheres…
Another Explanation for K2-18b? A Gas-Rich Mini-Neptune with No Habitable Surface
Exoplanet K2-18b is garnering a lot of attention. James Webb Space Telescope spectroscopy shows it has carbon and methane in…