eye cosmic Hubble Space Telescope, two teams of scientists have detected signs of water in the atmospheres of five planets outside the solar system.
The existence of water in extrasolar planets already found in previous research, but this is the first study been able to measure and compare the amount of water in these five worlds, according to NASA in a statement.
Although
planets orbiting other suns are too far away for them to be observed directly, it is possible analysis of size and composition of their atmospheres , to study the transit of these worlds before its stars.
The amount of water detected in the five planets studied with Hubble (WASP-17b, HD209458b, WASP-12b, WASP-19b and XO-1b) varied enough. The strongest signals indicating the presence of H20 were observed in WASP-17b and HD209458b, although the other three planets clearly were also detected evidence consistent with the existence of water .
“We believe we have detected signs of water on multiple planets,” says Avi Mandell, a researcher at the NASA Goddard Center in Maryland, and lead author of one of the studies on this finding, published today in the journal Astrophysical Journal . “This work really opens the door to the possibility of compare how much water is in the atmospheres of various types of exoplanets , for example the differences between the warmer and colder.”
These investigations are part of a survey that analyzed the atmospheres of exoplanets, led by scientist L. Dreming Drake, of the University of Maryland. Their observations have again demonstrated once again the extraordinary scientific potential of Hubble to study exoplanets .
“It is extremely difficult to detect the atmosphere of an exoplanet,” says Deming, whose team used a new observing technique which increased the accuracy of their measurements. “But were able to get a clear signal, and is water “, says the researcher.
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