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.
In: 29
Atoms have different masses and charges depending upon what element they are.
This leads to light getting absorbed or emitted by different kinds of elements differently, and essentially acts like [fingerprints of light](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectral_line#Spectral_lines_of_chemical_elements).
The way that molecules hold multiple atoms together also causes light to be absorbed or emitted by different kinds of molecules in different ways. So that acts like yet another kind of light-based fingerprint.
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