There could be life out there—way, way out there. Last Wednesday, NASA announced that its James Webb Space Telescope had discovered “compelling evidence” of a planet that is potentially habitable. The planet, TWA 7b, is located in a disk of debris surrounding the dwarf star TWA7. It is estimated to be 100 times the size of Earth, with a temperature of around 120 degrees Fahrenheit. While that might seem balmy, scientists have found that living things can grow and reproduce at temperatures up to 251 degrees. Indeed, NASA referred to TWA 7b as a “young, cold, Saturn-mass planet” in its press release. The new planet, which is 34 light years from Earth, isn’t the first habitable planet that NASA has discovered—the organization’s “planet hunter” satellite discovered a habitable exoplanet 100 light years away from Earth in 2020—but it is the first one found using a new technique called high-contrast imaging. This method allows astronomers to detect planets that would otherwise be drowned out by the light emanating from their host star. As to whether we’ll ever make it out to visit TWA 7b, prospects seem dim: 34 light years is equivalent to around 199 trillion miles.
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