The Space Telescope Science Institute announced this week that NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has detected water vapor near a rocky exoplanet that is highly unlikely to have an atmosphere.
It's a startling discovery that raises more questions than it can answer. For instance, does the presence of water vapor indicate that the rocky exoplanet dubbed GJ 486 b has an atmosphere — or could the vapor be coming from the planet's much cooler host star?
It's a particularly intriguing finding, since to date, no rocky planet of this sort has been found to definitively have an atmosphere. And regardless, the Webb just keeps delivering the goods.
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