Hubble Discovers Clouds on Distant Planet
- 10 years ago
Images from outside of our solar system taken by NASA’s Hubble Space telescope show that two exoplanets have what looks like high altitude clouds in their atmosphere.
Images from outside of our solar system taken by the Hubble Space telescope show that two exoplanets have what looks like high altitude clouds in their atmosphere.
Heather Knutson, an astronomer and leader of one of the Hubble research teams is quoted as saying: “We'd really like to determine the size at which these planets transition from looking like mini-gas giants to something more like a water world or a rocky, scaled-up version of the Earth. Both of these observations are fundamentally trying to answer that question.”
To help get to the bottom of the mystery, two separate studies were done - one by the University of Chicago which focused on a super-Earth exoplanet, and one that focused on a warmer Neptune size exoplanet, called GJ 436b that is 36 light years away from Earth.
Contents of distant planet atmospheres can be determined by observing them using the Hubble telescope when starlight passes through the edge of the planet’s atmosphere.
The planets were both found to have evidence of water vapor or hydrogen clouds in the atmosphere.
In the case of the super-Earth, called GJ 1214b and located about 40 light years away from our planet evidence of clouds was found, but determined to be unlike our Earth’s. Findings on the other were inconclusive.
Images from outside of our solar system taken by the Hubble Space telescope show that two exoplanets have what looks like high altitude clouds in their atmosphere.
Heather Knutson, an astronomer and leader of one of the Hubble research teams is quoted as saying: “We'd really like to determine the size at which these planets transition from looking like mini-gas giants to something more like a water world or a rocky, scaled-up version of the Earth. Both of these observations are fundamentally trying to answer that question.”
To help get to the bottom of the mystery, two separate studies were done - one by the University of Chicago which focused on a super-Earth exoplanet, and one that focused on a warmer Neptune size exoplanet, called GJ 436b that is 36 light years away from Earth.
Contents of distant planet atmospheres can be determined by observing them using the Hubble telescope when starlight passes through the edge of the planet’s atmosphere.
The planets were both found to have evidence of water vapor or hydrogen clouds in the atmosphere.
In the case of the super-Earth, called GJ 1214b and located about 40 light years away from our planet evidence of clouds was found, but determined to be unlike our Earth’s. Findings on the other were inconclusive.