The James Webb Space Telescope has detected water vapour and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of TOI-700e, a rocky exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone of its star, about 100 light-years away. This marks the first time scientists have identified an atmosphere on a rocky, habitable-zone planet with a chemical composition that genuinely resembles Earth’s. While this finding doesn’t confirm the presence of life, researchers call it a «proof of concept» — a crucial milestone that demonstrates the telescope’s capability to search for biosignatures in future missions.
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