According to SciTech Daily, the mysterious planet WASP-39b is a gas giant the size of Saturn, but orbits its parent star WASP-39 at a closer distance than Mercury - the Sun. heaven, making it a rare "new species" in the planetary world: hot Saturn.

Scientists at the US Space Agency (NASA) discovered that the exoplanet WASP-39b, located 700 light-years from Earth, contains a huge amount of water in the form of atmospheric vapor, almost three times the amount of water. on Saturn.

They used the Hubble space telescope and the Spitzer telescope to produce detailed spectra of the atmosphere of WASP-39b, allowing evidence of the existence of water to be discovered. The exoplanet WASP-39b has the same mass as Saturn.

However, unlike the gas giant planets in the Solar System, WASP-39b does not have a ring system. WASP-39b completes one orbit around its host star in 4 days. This exoplanet is located 20 times closer to its host star than the distance between Earth and the Sun.

WASP-39b is tidally locked, meaning that one side of the planet is always facing the star. The temperature on the daytime side of the planet reaches 776.7 degrees Celsius. Strong winds carry heat from the daytime side around the planet, making the night side very hot as well.

However, now thanks to  the "magic eye"  of the newest and most powerful space telescope James Webb, operated by NASA, supported by ESA and CSA (European and Canadian space agency), the world The mysterious world in  the "sea of clouds"  of this  "hot Saturn"  has just been revealed.

Astronomer Natalie Batalha from the University of California at Santa Cruz (USSC - USA), who coordinated the new study led by NASA, said the findings would be "game-changing  ".

For the first time, traces of SO2 have been found in an exoplanet’s atmosphere, a molecule created from chemical reactions triggered by high-energy light from its parent star, much like Earth’s ozone layer. is set.

According to researcher Shang-Min Tsai from the University of Oxford (UK), lead author, this is the first concrete evidence of the photochemical reaction of an exoplanet. In addition, James Webb also found clear signs of sodium, potassium, water vapor, CO2 ... in this special atmosphere.

Tracking chemical reactions in an atmosphere 700 light-years away shows that this super telescope is more than capable of capturing chemical signatures and reactions that could be related to life - What scientists expect with a long line of Earth-like exoplanets has been identified.

As hot Saturn, WASP-39b is almost certainly devoid of life, but it is an excellent laboratory for discovering the chemical composition of a distant exoplanet, including potentially life-threatening exoplanets. livable is located only a few dozen light-years away.

The new discoveries about WASP-39b are detailed in 5 different scientific papers, 3 of which have been published in journals, 2 of which are pending peer review.