[Gadgest] James Webb has discovered water in the atmosphere of the nearby red-hot giant planet WASP-18b, which is 10 times more massive than Jupiter.

[Draeno]

 

The James Webb Space Telescope continues to study the universe. Scientists have recently used it to detect water vapor on a giant planet, relatively close to us.

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The study once again confirmed the excellent resolution of the instruments on board the space laboratory. The exoplanet where the water was discovered is called WASP-18 b. It is 400 light years away. It was discovered in 2008 using several telescopes, including Hubble.

WASP-18 b is very close to its star and goes around it in 24 hours. The distance between the planet and the luminary is only 3.1 million km. For comparison, Mercury is 63 million km and Earth is 150 million km from the Sun.

Scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) state that due to the high temperature (2700 degrees Celsius), water molecules break apart. However, a small amount of water is still preserved.

It is also worth noting that WASP-18b is constantly turned towards the star by one of its sides. Because of this, the temperature on the opposite side is 1,100 degrees Celsius lower. Scientists will now study the reasons for this drastic difference, since there must be some factor that prevents the heat from spreading evenly.

Source: space

 

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