Of the seven Earth-sized worlds orbiting the red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, one planet in particular has attracted the attention of scientists, because it orbits the star within the “Goldilocks zone” – a distance where water on its surface is theoretically possible – but only if the planet has an atmosphere. And where there is water, there might be life.
Two recently scientific papers detail initial observations of the TRAPPIST-1 system obtained by a research group using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. In these publications, the authors, including Sukrit Ranjan with the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, present a careful analysis of the results so far and offer several potential scenarios for what the planet’s atmosphere and surface may be like.
While the reports are intriguing and show progress toward characterizing the nearest potentially earth-like exoplanet, Ranjan urges caution in a third paper, arguing that more rigorous studies are needed to determine whether TRAPPIST-1e has an atmosphere at all and whether preliminary hints of methane detected by James Webb are indeed signs of an atmosphere or have their origin with its host star.
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