My gf and I are just confused cos the best two telescopes out there are hubble and JWST, right? And they’re great at what they do respectively, but how the hell do we know that a planet millions of light years away has an atmosphere made up of x.
Was prompted because of an article which said “It may have detected a molecule called dimethyl sulphide (DMS). On Earth, at least, this is only produced by life. “ like how tf can we detect a MOLECULE that is so far away.
My guess is colours but no clue.
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What you have to understand about those telescopes is that they’re not looking in the visible light spectrum. When you get into multispectral or hyperspectral imagine you’re taking multiple measurements for each pixel in hundreds of different wavelengths to measure things like composition. That’s what JWST is doing. It’s not looking out and taking really great photos. It’s taking hundreds of measurements in each pixel that are then calculated against known values for certain compounds.
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