by James Felton
July 26, 2022
Introduction:
Read and see more here: https://www.iflscience.com/jwsts-first ... fe-64591(IFL Science) An amateur on Reddit has created the first image of the TRAPPIST-1 system using data from JWST. Exoplanet fans will be excited to hear that JWST – a telescope so powerful it makes Hubble look like someone has smeared their thumb on the lens – has already taken a long first look at the TRAPPIST-1 system.
Using publicly available data from the JWST, Redditor arizonaskies2022 was able to piece together the first image of the star, potentially while one of its planets was transiting it, though this has not yet been confirmed.
"Both images are public raw data files I found and downloaded from MAST website," Arizonaskies2022 explained on the JWST subreddit. "I did minimal processing neither image is cropped just a little stretch and color."
TRAPPIST-1 is exciting to astronomers for a number of reasons, not least because it has seven roughly Earth-sized planets orbiting around it, with three in the habitable zone. The ultra-cool red dwarf is just 40 light-years from us, making it easier to study, and it may even have huge amounts of water.
Now that JWST is up and pointing at it, we could learn about the planets' atmospheres, should they have any at all.