Webb telescope finds first clear evidence of a 'steam world'

Among the 5,700 confirmed exoplanets astronomers have discovered outside the solar system, there are those considered ice worlds and water worlds, but what about a steam world? 

Well, they've done it. Scientists using the James Webb Space Telescope, a partnership of NASA and its European and Canadian counterparts, have indeed detected a sauna-like planet about 100 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Pisces. Some have called it the first direct evidence of a planet blanketed in wet heat. 

This humid alien planet, GJ 9827 d, is about double the size of Earth and has an atmosphere almost entirely composed of water vapor, according to a new study. Before now, such worlds were only theorized to exist in space. 

"It was a very surreal moment," said Eshan Raul, who contributed to the research while an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan, in a statement. "We were searching specifically for water worlds because it was hypothesized that they could exist. If these are real, it really makes you wonder what else could be out there."

Such a steam world is thought to have thick water-rich air, with a surface devoid of ice or flowing water. It's what scientists imagine icy moons of Jupiter, like Europa and Ganymede, would be like if they orbited near the sun instead of more distant reaches of the solar system. 

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