A Year in Review: New Earth Discoveries in 2020 Measuring a large oceanic migration from space. ... Defining causes of mangrove loss. ... Understanding when hurricanes will strengthen. ... Determining the effect of dust on clouds. ... Constraining Earth's climate sensitivity. ... Observing COVID-19 impacts on air pollution. More items...

1. Prepared by: Antonette C.
Albina
Recent Discoveries
Relevant to Earth
Science

2.  NASA revealed the first five full-
color images and spectrographic
data from the world's most
powerful space telescope, the
James Webb Space Telescope, a
partnership with ESA (European
Space Agency), and CSA
(Canadian Space Agency). The
world got its first look at the full
capabilities of the mission at a
live event streamed from the
agency's Goddard Space Flight
Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, on

4. The event showcased these
targets:
 Carina Nebula: A landscape speckled with
glittering stars and cosmic cliffs
 Stephan’s Quintet: An enormous mosaic with a
visual grouping of five galaxies
 Southern Ring Nebula: A nebula with rings of
gas and dust for thousands of years in all
directions
 SMACS 0723: The deepest and sharpest
infrared image of the distant universe to date
 WASP 96-b: A distinct signature of water in the
atmosphere of an exoplanet orbiting a distant

5. The Carina Nebula or Eta
Carinae Nebula
(catalogued as NGC
3372; also known as the
Great Carina Nebula) is a
large, complex area of
bright and dark
nebulosity in the
constellation Carina, and
it is located in the
Carina–Sagittarius Arm.
The nebula is
approximately 8,500
light-years (2,600 pc)
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals emerging stellar
nurseries and individual stars in the Carina Nebula that were
previously obscured

6. NGC 3132 (also known
as the Eight-Burst
Nebula, the Southern
Ring Nebula, vor
Caldwell 74) is a bright
and extensively
studied planetary
nebula in the
constellation Vela. Its
distance from Earth is
estimated at about 613
pc. or 2,000 light-
years.
Images of the Southern Ring Nebula reveal two stars close together within
the nebulosity, one of 10th magnitude, the other 16th. The central planetary
nebula nucleus (PNN) or white dwarf central star is the fainter of these two

7. Stephan’s Quintet is a visual
grouping of five galaxies of which
four form the first compact galaxy
group ever discovered. The group,
visible in the constellation Pegasus,
was discovered by Édouard Stephan
in 1877 at the Marseille
Observatory. The group is the most
studied of all the compact galaxy
groups. The brightest member of
the visual grouping (and the only
non-member of the true group) is
NGC 7320, which has extensive H II
regions, identified as red blobs,
Four of the five galaxies in Stephan’s Quintet form a physical
association, a true galaxy group, Hickson Compact Group 92,
and will likely merge with each other.

8. SMACS J0723.3-7327 is a
cluster of galaxies in the
southern constellation
Volans (the Flying Fish). This
is an area that hasn’t been
studied extensively, and the
JWST team wants to look
into a part of space where
there are a large number of
far away galaxies to see
what the JWST can produce.
This should be an exciting
image to see from the JWST.
This work is based on observations taken by the RELICS
Treasury Program (GO 14096) with the NASA/ESA HST, which
is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in
Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555

9. WASP-96 b is a world with a
sodium rich atmosphere. The
planet, located nearly 1,150 light-
years from Earth, orbits its star
every 3.4 days. It has about half the
mass of Jupiter, and its discovery
was announced in 2014.
In June 2022, the Webb Space
Telescope captured the distinct
signature of water, along with
evidence for clouds and haze, in
the atmosphere of this hot, puffy
gas giant planet, which orbits a
distant star.

10. Using observations from NASA’s
Transiting Exoplanet Survey
Satellite (TESS), backed up by
ground-based telescopes, an
international team led by the
University of Montreal announced
the discovery of a “super-Earth” –
a planet that is potentially rocky
like ours, but larger – orbiting a
red-dwarf star about 100 light-
years away. Further investigation
could shed light on an intriguing
possibility: that the planet might
be a “water world.” The discoverers: The international team that found the planet was led
by Charles Cadieux, a Ph.D. student at the University of Montreal.

11. TOI-1452 b makes a
complete orbit of its star
every 11 days – a “year” on
TOI-1452 b. But because
the red-dwarf star is
smaller and cooler than our
Sun, the planet receives a
similar amount of light
from its star as Venus does
from our Sun. Liquid water
might exist on the planet’s
surface, despite its close
The discoverers: The international team that found the planet was
led by Charles Cadieux, a Ph.D. student at the University of
Montreal.