The JWST has spotted the presence of carbon dioxide on HR 8799’s four known planets, part of a system astronomers use to explore the formation of our own system. The results are consistent with models of how the Solar System’s giant planets formed.

The James Webb Space Telescope has captured its first direct images of carbon dioxide in a planet outside the solar system in HR 8799, a multiplanet system 130 light-years away that has long been a key target for planet formation studies.

In 2022, the Webb telescope detected unequivocal evidence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a distant exoplanet called WASP-39b. But that detection was made indirectly, so the latest accomplishment newly validates the telescope’s ability to spot the gas in distant star systems.