The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has detected what seems to be convincing evidence of life on a “potentially viable” ocean planet around 50 million light-years away, dubbed LHS 1140 b, and situated in the constellation Cetus in the night sky, “CNRS” reported.
Researchers from the Universities of Michigan and Montreal examined data transmitted by the powerful JWST optical telescope in late 2023.
The planet, likely to have both air and ocean sources, was observed by Hubble, Spitzer, and TESS space telescopes, as well as the ESPRESSO instrument mounted on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile.
“Of all currently known temperate exoplanets, LHS 1140 b could well be our best bet to one day indirectly confirm liquid water on the surface of an alien world beyond our solar system,” according to Charles Cadieux, the paper’s primary author, New York Post said.
NASA characterizes the planet as a “rocky world,” with a radius 1.73 times that of Earth and a mass 5.6 times that of Earth. Colorwise, it resembles a mix between Mars and Jupiter.
Fellow NASA researcher Ryan MacDonald stated that this “is the first time we have ever seen a hint of an atmosphere” on worlds outside our solar system with a rocky or ice texture – it would take the cosmic ray instrument named the Voyager probe 863,000 years to approach.
If water exists, it is most likely beneath deep, frozen permafrost. The terrain is characterized as resembling the ice planet Hoth from “Star Wars.”
LHS 1140 b is thought to reside in a “Goldilocks Zone” that, like Earth, is at an optimal distance from its star — a hot object about a fifth the size of our Sun. As a result, its temperatures are likely to sustain liquid water, which is estimated to make up about 20% of the planet’s mass.
There are also speculations that the exoplanet’s atmosphere may have characteristics similar to Earth, such as the existence of nitrogen.