NASA Sagan Fellow (and FEPS Research Group member) Ryan MacDonald led the modelling of JWST observations of GJ 486 b, in order to understand its atmosphere through transmission spectroscopy. The favored interpretation is that GJ 486 b is a “water world”, with an atmosphere that suggests the presence of surface water content many times that of Earth, leaving no land area exposed. Such planets are predicted to be a common outcome of the planet formation process, but until recently these predictions have been hard to confirm. However for GJ 486 b, there is an alternative explanation: the features seen in the spectra could be due to star-spots on the surface of the primary rather than a feature of the planet seen in transmission. To read more, see the UM press release.