Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a team led by McGill researcher Vigneshwaran Krishnamurthy has observed a giant cloud of helium gas evaporating from a distant giant exoplanet called WASP-107b.
Published in Nature Astronomy, the findings represent a first: while helium escape has been observed before, this is the first time the JWST has witnessed a planet's atmosphere evaporating so extensively that the escaping gas, stretching nearly 10 times the planet's radius, precedes the planet along its path.
"The James Webb Space Telescope has captured helium escape from this planet for the first time, and it is the most confident detection of pre-transit helium absorption for any exoplanet," said Krishnamurthy, a postdoctoral researcher at McGill's Trottier Space Institute, member of the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets (IREx) and lead author of the study.
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