international. The James Webb telescope discovers the first exoplanet.

The James Webb space telescope discovered the first planet outside the solar system.

And the US space agency “NASA” said that it had previously indicated the existence of an exoplanet, “LHS ​​475”, and now it was confirmed for the first time with the help of a telescope. LHS 475 is roughly the same diameter as Earth and is about 41 light-years away. It is still not clear whether the exoplanet has an atmosphere similar to Earth’s.

For a long time, astronomers knew only about the planets revolving around our sun. The first exoplanets – celestial bodies that usually orbit a star outside our solar system – were only confirmed in the early 1990s. NASA experts assume that there are hundreds of billions of exoplanets in our Milky Way galaxy.

The James Webb telescope was built jointly by the space agencies of Europe (ESA), the United States of America (NASA) and Canada (CSA) and was launched into space at the end of 2021 aboard the Ariane launch vehicle from the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. – Having previously had cost explosions and frequent delays. The telescope’s first images were released in the summer of 2022, providing the deepest and most detailed insights into space yet.

SDA