The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered a previously unknown exoplanet

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has discovered a previously unknown exoplanet for the first time. This is evidenced on June 25 by a study and a snapshot published by the journal Nature.

It is specified that this discovery is the first of its kind for a telescope and was achieved using a French-made coronagraph, which is mounted on the MIRI JWST instrument.

The researchers put forward three different options for the possible origin of the planet — the origin from the Solar system, the background galaxy and the planet. It is noted that the new exoplanet, named TWA 7 b, is 10 times lighter than previously discovered ones. Its mass is comparable to about a third of the mass of Jupiter.

"This result marks a new step in the exploration and direct imaging of increasingly smaller exoplanets that look more like Earth than the gas giants of the solar system. JWST has the potential to go even further in the future," notes the EurekAlert portal, owned by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

In addition, according to the portal, such a discovery demonstrates the relevance of future generations of space and ground-based telescopes for searching for exoplanets, especially with the help of more modern and improved coronographs.

On April 17, astronomers from the University of Cambridge (USA) discovered organic compounds dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide in the atmosphere of the exoplanet K2-18b, which are produced exclusively by living organisms on Earth. It was clarified that, despite the possibility of their inorganic origin, the revealed concentrations of molecules are the most significant evidence of the potential existence of life outside the Solar system.