There is a 'steam world' with water vapour in outer space. Is it habitable?

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, scientists looked into the exoplanet GJ 9827 d in the constellation Pisces and found that this super-Earth has an atmosphere that is saturated with water vapour.

The telescope was used by the Canadian-led international study to gather data on the atmosphere of GJ 9827 d which is around 98 light-years away from Earth.

Here's what scientists found in the exoplanet's atmosphere

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In the study, it was found that the atmosphere of the planet has a high concentration of heavy molecules, which included a good amount of water vapour. Because of this, the astronomers believed that it was a “steam world”.

At the start of the year,with the help of data collected by the Hubble Space Telescope, IREx researchers stated that they had found water in the atmosphere of GJ 9827 d, which made it the smallest exoplanet with a confirmed atmosphere.

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These major findings opened new ways for scientists who are searching for life outside our Solar System.

Till now, the detection of atmospheres near smaller planets closer to Earth was an elusive goal.

“For now, all the planets we’ve detected that have atmospheres are giant planets, or at best mini-Neptunes,” stated lead study author Piaulet-Ghorayeb.

“These planets have atmospheres made up mostly of hydrogen, making them more similar to gas giants in the solar system than to terrestrial planets like Earth, which have atmospheres dominated by heavier elements," he said.

The observations were made by Piaulet-Ghorayeb and her team with the help of a Canadian instrument on JWST, the Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS).

With the help of transmission spectroscopy, the scientists observed the starlight which passed through the atmosphere of the planet as it transited (passed in front of) its host star, GJ 9827.

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The new JWST observations were then combined with preliminary HST observations to provide strong evidence about how the planet’s atmosphere led to the observed spectral features and it did not occur because of the contamination from the system’s star.

It was observed that the exoplanet GJ 9827 stands different from others because of the composition of its atmosphere.

Piaulet-Ghorayeb combined JWST/NIRISS and HST data and showed that the atmosphere of GJ 9827 d is filled with heavier molecules and a quite large amount of water vapour, which is not the situation in the case of the hydrogen-dominated atmospheres of the larger planets.

With the combination of data from JWST's Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) with earlier HST data, Piaulet-Ghorayeb and her team showed that the atmosphere of the planet is significantly different from those of larger planets.

"It's closer in molecular weight to the carbon dioxide or nitrogen-rich atmospheres that we are currently looking for on smaller rocky planets, where we would eventually look for life," she said.

(With inputs from agencies)