Planet HD 189733b
December 11, 2008
Water vapor has been found 63 light-years from Earth
Carl Grillmair of the California Institute of Technology and his team of scientists have detected water vapor in the atmosphere of a planet 63 light-years away from earth.
The planet, HD 189733b, is what’s called a “Hot Jupiter” — a boiling, gigantic gas planet more akin to our own Jupiter or Saturn than to a terrestrial planet like Earth. It’s not a good candidate itself for alien life, but the successful detection of water vapor here, in the location and quantities that theorists predicted, bodes well for further studies of more promising locales for extraterrestrial life.
WIRED.com
According to the article, it’s not of large significane that water vapor has been found on another planet other than Earth, our own Jupiter has water vapor, the signifcance is that a planet so distant from our solar system has been identified with having water vapor in it’s atmosphere.
I think whats most significant is that we can detect this from 63 light-years away. Burrows, a lead scientest on the project,
“The data we have is the best spectrum ever taken of a planet outside the solar system.”WIRED.com
Truly an achievement for modern science, can’t wait to see what we detect next. ET?!
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/12/embargoed—wat.html
