Uploaded April 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
Prof. Jonathan Fortney (U. of California, Santa Cruz)
Apr. 9, 2025
Over 6000 planets have now been found around other stars, but we only have information about what their atmospheres are like for a few dozen. NASA's powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which features a 20-foot mirror in space, is currently being used to understand atmospheres. Prof. Fortney explains how we can look for atmospheres around rocky planets the size of the Earth, and how his group and others are already measuring the abundances of molecules like water, methane, ammonia, and carbon dioxide, in larger planets, of sizes similar to Neptune and Jupiter. And he tells us what astronomers are looking forward to in the next year or two with JWST.
Prof. Jonathan Fortney (U. of California, Santa Cruz)
Apr. 9, 2025
Over 6000 planets have now been found around other stars, but we only have information about what their atmospheres are like for a few dozen. NASA's powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which features a 20-foot mirror in space, is currently being used to understand atmospheres. Prof. Fortney explains how we can look for atmospheres around rocky planets the size of the Earth, and how his group and others are already measuring the abundances of molecules like water, methane, ammonia, and carbon dioxide, in larger planets, of sizes similar to Neptune and Jupiter. And he tells us what astronomers are looking forward to in the next year or two with JWST.
