DECRYPTION – The James Webb Space Telescope has succeeded in identifying the presence of carbon dioxide at a distance of 700 light years.
It is a discovery which, in a somewhat surprising way, has been widely reported in the media in recent days: the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has detected carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of an exoplanet. If it is sometimes obvious to understand why journalists and the general public are enthusiastic about a scientific news – because it is of very great importance or spectacular for example – there are other situations in which this deciphering is more delicate. . We are exactly in this second scenario.
In this case, it is probably some sort of minor misunderstanding. For scientists, the news is important because it demonstrates the formidable capabilities of the newly commissioned James Webb Space Telescope to quickly identify molecules that were previously difficult to observe in the atmospheres of exoplanets. For the general public, it is probably the fact that this is the “first” detection…