Among the most anticipated objectives for the James Webb Space Telescope is studying the atmospheres of some of the seven Earth-sized planets orbiting the star TRAPPIST-1, which is just 12 parsecs (39 light years) from Earth.

All seven of these worlds are inside or very close to their star's habitable zone, which is a region where liquid water could exist.

This makes them the best-known place to study what could make planets outside of the Solar System suitable for life.

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Preliminary results do not yet show the kinds of atmospheres these planets may truly have.

However, in the next few months and years, the Webb telescope will be able to detect them if they have thick atmospheres with interesting compounds like carbon dioxide or methane.

Not until now has any other observatory had the capacity to detect these atmospheres.

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Since its discovery in 2017, the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system has provided astronomers with several opportunities to learn more about the birth and development of planets similar to Earth that circle a single star.

The seven planets are snuggled closer to the star than Mercury is to the Sun, and the star itself is rather dim and cool.

JWST is observing all of the planets in its first year of science operations, which began in June.

Many of those observations have already been made, but none had been shown publicly until this week’s symposium, which took place at the Space Telescope Science Institute, the JWST operations centre.

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Beneke, an astronomer at the University of Montreal in Canada, showed the first research that JWST had done on TRAPPIST-1g.

So far, the telescope has confirmed what the Hubble Space Telescope had already found: the planet presumably doesn't have a hydrogen-rich atmosphere.

Given the huge size of such an environment due to its low density, it should be easy to notice.

Either the atmosphere is composed of heavier molecules like carbon dioxide, making it denser, or there is no atmosphere at all.

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Because different molecules absorb sunlight in distinctive ways, JWST can learn a lot about planetary atmospheres by monitoring how they behave as filters when planets pass in front of their stars.

The types of molecules found in the atmosphere may provide clues about a planet's history and whether or not life can exist there.

Before researchers can figure out if TRAPPIST-1g has an atmosphere and, if so, what that atmosphere is made of, they need more time to look at and analyze data.

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Compared to data collected from bigger exoplanets like WASP-39b, a Jupiter-sized planet that JWST has investigated in detail, the TRAPPIST-1 data is far more challenging to analyse.

The planets of TRAPPIST-1 are significantly smaller, making it harder to detect a signal from their atmospheres.

Signals may be induced by magnetic fluctuations in the star, considerably complicating attempts to analyze the data.

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