Chandra, measuring the planet’s transit using X-rays from its star, showed that HD 189733 b’s atmosphere is distended by evaporation. Spitzer estimated its temperature at 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit (935 degrees Celsius). Hubble found that the atmosphere of the planet is a deep blue. One very strange world, the “hot Jupiter” HD 189733 b, has been observed by all three. Hubble, Spitzer, and Chandra, for example, each helped open the door to analyzing exoplanet atmospheres. The result of all this teamwork: thousands of exoplanets confirmed in our galaxy, and the opening chapter in a new era of discovery – not only finding exoplanets, but understanding what they are like. Meanwhile, Kepler, also retired, and TESS took on exoplanets as their main mission, both employing the transit method – searching for tiny dips in starlight as a planet crosses, or “transits,” the face of its star. That has allowed it to peer into the tatters of exploded stars and the edges of our galaxy’s central, supermassive black hole.Īnother Great Observatory, the now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope, viewed the cosmos in infrared light, observing structural details of disks around stars and the faint glow of distant galaxies.Īll three of these telescopes also have made ground-breaking exoplanet observations. The Chandra X-ray Observatory, like Hubble one of NASA’s “Great Observatories,” examines the universe in X-rays. The Hubble Space Telescope can look deep into the cosmic past, seeing light from the early universe and some of the most distant stars and galaxies ever observed. Many of their “superpowers,” of course, go far beyond detecting exoplanets. Over the past few decades, a team of now-legendary space telescopes answered the call: Hubble, Chandra, Spitzer, Kepler, TESS, and now, the Webb telescope. “While ground-based telescopes showed us that it is indeed possible to discover new planets, it’s often space-based facilities that allow us to advance from initial detections to well-understood worlds,” said Jennifer Burt, an exoplanet scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Cosmic Legacy: Retired Space Telescope Reveals ‘Hot Jupiter' Secrets
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