In a new study from a group of researchers in Canada, data from NASA’s now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope was used to determine the conditions under which silicate clouds form on distant exoplanets outside of our solar system — giving scientists insight into what’s inside the atmospheres of exoplanets similar in size, temperature, and composition to Earth.
The study, led by Genaro Suárez of Western University in London, Ontario, was released just weeks before the now-operational James Webb Space Telescope’s first images were released on July 12. One of Webb’s first images is spectral data of exoplanet WASP-96b, which, to the surprise of Webb teams, revealed clouds and haze inside the exoplanet’s atmosphere and gave scientists a small glimpse into what Webb can do when observing exoplanets.