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autotldr t1_ixdmon5 wrote

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 90%. (I'm a bot)

> To see light from WASP-39 b, Webb tracked the planet as it passed in front of its star, allowing some of the star's light to filter through the planet's atmosphere.

> "The abundance of sulfur hydrogen indicated that the planet presumably experienced significant accretion of planetesimals that can deliver to the atmosphere," said Kazumasa Ohno, a UC Santa Cruz exoplanet researcher who worked on Webb data.

> In so precisely parsing an exoplanet atmosphere, the Webb telescope's instruments performed well beyond scientists' expectations - and promise a new phase of exploration among the broad variety of exoplanets in the galaxy.

Extended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: atmosphere^#1 Webb^#2 planet^#3 exoplanet^#4 star^#5

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StaleCanole t1_ixg3m4l wrote

How do these instruments perform beyond a scientists expectations. Are they doing things they werent designed for?

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InSight89 t1_ixg7rs0 wrote

>How do these instruments perform beyond a scientists expectations.

Expectations does not equal capability. These instruments aren't working better than they are capable of, that would be impossible. However, there's a lot of variables that may alter the capabilities of these instruments (think vibrations of rocket, deployment, insertion accuracy that can alter the performance of these instruments etc) and it turns out that those variables had minimal impact.

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