There is no atmosphere on Trappist-1b, a planet hitherto considered a possible Earth double that is part of the closest planetary system to ours ever discovered.
The James Webb (JWST) space telescope of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and Canada (CSA) took care of definitively extinguishing hopes, already quite scarce given the extreme proximity of the planet to its star. its temperature in the form of infrared light: this is the first detection of this type for such a small exoplanet and the study, published in the journal Nature and led by NASA's Ames Research Center, is a first demonstration of the JWST's capabilities in observe Earth-sized doppelgangers.
Trappist-1 is a red dwarf, a small and cold star 39.5 light-years away from our Solar System, which has become famous for the seven planets that orbit it.
Trappist-1b, in particular, is the innermost of the seven, with an orbit that lasts only 1.51 days, and receives from its star four times the radiation that the Earth receives from the Sun. It is precisely thanks to the large amount of heat received that the researchers led by Thomas Greene were able to measure the temperature of the rocky planet, which for the part exposed to the light of the star reaches about 230 degrees.
Furthermore, the data from the Webb telescope indicate that the planet has no or almost no atmosphere, confirming previously developed theoretical models.
However, Trappist-1b has three much more promising 'brothers' than it, which fall within the star's habitable zone: they are those marked by the letters e, f and g, which have orbits ranging from approximately 6 to 12 days.
According to some studies, these three planets are the best candidates to host oceans of liquid water and Trappist-1e, in particular, could have the right conditions to be habitable.
