00:01Astronomers get their clearest look yet at the surface of an exoplanet, a planet beyond
00:05our solar system with NASA's James Webb Telescope. Webb gathered data on the exoplanet called LHS
00:113844b or Quaqua, the word for butterfly in a Costa Rican indigenous language.
00:16The rocky exoplanet has a diameter about 30% larger than Earth and a surface that may resemble
00:21that of Mercury. Its lack of a discernible atmosphere and its extreme temperatures,
00:25fiercely hot on one side and frigid on the other, seem to render it uninhabitable.
00:30The planet orbits a star smaller and less luminous than the Sun, located about 49 light-years away.
00:36Astronomer Laura Kreidberg says,
00:38This planet is not a nice place and is a hellish, barren rock. Webb was launched in 2021,
00:44became operational in 2022, and has since enabled revolutionary advances in the understanding of exoplanets.
Comments