Astronomers Find Organic Molecules Around Gas Planet
NASA researchers have detected the basic chemistry for life in a second hot gas planet, advancing astronomers toward the goal of being able to characterize planets where life could exist.
The planet is not habitable but it has the same chemistry that, if found around a rocky planet in the future, could indicate the presence of life.
"It's the second planet outside our solar system in which water, methane and carbon dioxide have been found, which are potentially important for biological processes in habitable planets," said researcher Mark Swain of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
"Detecting organic compounds in two exoplanets now raises the possibility that it will become commonplace to find planets with molecules that may be tied to life."
Swain and his co-investigators used data from two of NASA's orbiting Great Observatories, the Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope, to study HD 209458b, a hot, gaseous giant planet bigger than Jupiter that orbits a sun-like star about 150 light years away in the constellation Pegasus.
The new finding follows their breakthrough discovery in December 2008 of carbon dioxide around another hot, Jupiter-size planet, HD 189733b. Earlier Hubble and Spitzer observations of that planet had also revealed water vapor and methane.
The detections were made through spectroscopy, which splits light into its components to reveal the distinctive spectral signatures of different chemicals.
"The basic chemistry for life has been detected in a second hot gas planet, HD 209458b, depicted in this artist's concept. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)"
Source: NASA
|
