James Webb Space Telescope Feed Post

Harvard ADS: Chemical characterisation of warm exoplanetary atmospheres: revelations from JWST about WASP-39b and much more

Paper abstract: The first observations of WASP-39b by JWST permitted important discoveries concerning exoplanetary atmospheres. With this single target, JWST detected for the first time carbon dioxide, but also sulfur dioxide. Importantly, this latter detection (and its analysis) permitted to obtain the first evidence of photochemical processes in an exoplanet atmosphere. In this context, the EXACT project is particularly timely as it will provide physico-chemical data validated at high temperature enabling reliable modelling of warm exoplanet atmospheres. Such data are mandatory to analyse future data from the next generation of instruments.