After a few false starts, astronomers say they have finally observed water vapor in the atmosphere of a so-called hot Jupiter, a large gaseous planet tightly orbiting a distant star. Using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, a research team measured the infrared starlight shining through the atmosphere of planet HD 189733 b as it passed in front of its star 63 light-years away.
The planet soaked up infrared light at several wavelengths in a pattern expected of water molecules, as detailed online today in Nature. “This is the first convincing detection of water in the atmosphere of a planet outside our own solar system,” says Heather Knutson, an astronomy graduate student at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., who was not involved in the study. Read more
Loading ...