In this April 13, 2017 photograph offered by NASA, technicians elevate the mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope utilizing a crane on the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The telescope is designed to look again to date that scientists will get a glimpse of the daybreak of the universe about 13.7 billion years in the past and zoom in on nearer cosmic objects with sharper focus.

Laura Betz/AP

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Laura Betz/AP

In this April 13, 2017 photograph offered by NASA, technicians elevate the mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope utilizing a crane on the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The telescope is designed to look again to date that scientists will get a glimpse of the daybreak of the universe about 13.7 billion years in the past and zoom in on nearer cosmic objects with sharper focus.

Laura Betz/AP

NASA’s Webb telescope has found an exoplanet, which is any planet that’s outdoors of our photo voltaic system, for the primary time, the company announced Wednesday.

The planet, known as LHS 475 b, is sort of the identical measurement as Earth, having 99% of our planet’s diameter, scientists mentioned. However, it’s a number of hundred levels hotter than Earth and completes its orbit round its star in two days. LHS 475 b is within the constellation Octans and is 41 light-years away, which is comparatively close by.

Scientists are nonetheless making an attempt to find out if the planet has an environment. It’s attainable LHS 475 b has no ambiance or one made fully out of carbon dioxide, however one possibility will be completely eradicated.

“There are some terrestrial-type atmospheres that we can rule out,” mentioned Jacob Lustig-Yaeger, a researcher on the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Marylan. “It can’t have a thick methane-dominated atmosphere, similar to that of Saturn’s moon Titan.”

Researchers have been scanning the skies utilizing NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) once they got here throughout the exoplanet, and used the Webb’s spectrograph expertise to additional examine. Spectrographs transmit mild from an object to a spectrum, which can provide details about the item’s temperature, mass and chemical composition.

“These first observational results from an Earth-size, rocky planet open the door to many future possibilities for studying rocky planet atmospheres with Webb,” mentioned Mark Clampin, astrophysics division director at NASA headquarters in D.C. “Webb is bringing us closer and closer to a new understanding of Earth-like worlds outside our solar system, and the mission is only just getting started.”