Exoplanet mass revealed in light

PLANET PROFILER  The final three mirrors of the James Webb Space Telescope’s 18 arrived at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., on December 16. Thanks to a new technique, astronomers should be able to determine exoplanets’ masses after the telescope launches in 2018.

Chris Gunn/GSFC/NASA

A distant planet has been weighed with light that passed through its atmosphere 63 years ago.