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The Solution To Finding An Atmosphere On TRAPPIST-1 e

This artist's impression shows TRAPPIST-1 e, a rocky, Earth-size exoplanet orbiting an ultracool red dwarf star. Finding a habitable planet starts with finding planets in habitable zones around stars like TRAPPIST-1 e. That has turned out well. But the next step is more difficult: detecting atmospheres at these planets and characterizing their components. That's proven more difficult because of stellar contamination, but researchers using with the JWST are working on a solution. Image Credit: By NASA/JPL-Caltech - Cropped from: PIA22093: TRAPPIST-1 Planet Lineup - Updated Feb. 2018, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76364487

arXiv:2512.07695v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: One of the forefront goals in the field of exoplanets is the detection of an atmosphere on a temperate terrestrial exoplanet, and among the best suited systems to do so is TRAPPIST-1. However, JWST transit observations of the TRAPPIST-1 planets show significant contamination from stellar surface features that we are unable to confidently model. Here, we present the motivation and first observations of our JWST multi-cycle program of TRAPPIST-1 e...



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