Scientists Find Water on Extra-solar Planet

amigoro writes "Scientists have, for the first time, conclusively discovered the presence of water vapour in the atmosphere of a planet beyond our Solar System, according to an article appearing in Nature. They made the discovery by analysing the transit of the gas giant HD 189733b across its star, in the Infrared using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. HD 189733b is a 'hot jupiter', a gas giant that is roughly the size and mass of Jupiter but orbits very close to the star, so no chance of life there."

Comments

no change of life like us

[QuantumG]

The arrogance of thinking that we're the only possible form of life is ludicrous.

Re:no change of life like us

[Dragonslicer]

There is an enormous amount of evidence to imply lack of extraterrestrial life. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Re:no change of life like us

[smallfries]

I'm surprised parent got modded down. There is an enormous amount of evidence to imply lack of extraterrestrial life. Lack of radio waves is the major one, for me, and no one has explained this so far.

Well the simplest explanation is that we have looked well enough. Ironically the post directly above you gives one satisfactory explanation of this, but I guess you didn't look hard enough before posting:

And, heck, then there's the sheer size of interstellar distances. If there was an exact copy of Earth sitting in a solar system just a measly 200 ly away, we still wouldn't be able to pick up any of their transmissions, because they started transmitting less than 200 years ago.

I've yet to see a single piece of evidence of a lack of extraterrestrial life. Could you name a single piece from this enormous amount that you are aware of. Of course remembering that absence of evidence is not evidence of an absence...

"no chance of life there"

[MutantEnemy]

You mean no chance of life as we know it...

Re:Hrrmph!

[Salgat]

I don't get it, what is so amazing about water on other planets? Water is simply the reaction of two rather simple and common elements, Hydrogen and Oxygen. Making water is by far not a hard task.

No Chance Of Life?!?! WTF?

[ThePopeLayton]

so no chance of life there.

This is a pretty bold statement. Scientist predicted that life couldn't survive in a number of environments on earth, yet it has been found in each one:

1- In lakes frozen hundreds of meters down in antarctica
2- In the dept of the ocean where NO light permeates
3- Next to Volcanic openings in the earths crust were tempuratues are well over 800 degress c
4- In the highly acidic and poisionus ponds in Yellowstone National Park

I am sure that there are more but I can't think of any.

So for some scientist to say that there can't be life, I just have to role my eyes. One thing that I have learned about life is that life will find away. So just because we can't concieve of the possible forms that life might take its a little presumputous for us to assume that it can't exist.

Earth is a small speck in the universe, it doesn't matter if you believe in God or not but to assume that life, as we know it on this planet, is the only form and location of life in the universe is a very ignorant view point.

I am of the firm conviction that as soon as we have the technology to explores these remote and hostile locations we will find things that we haven't even dreamed could exist.

So to get off my little soapbox here; if there is water there is probably life, and just because the conditions on the planet don't fit are current formula for life doesn't mean that our formula is correct.

Re:No Chance Of Life?!?! WTF?

[QuantumG]

Yup, cause we really explored the Moon. After all, we landed on 5 or 6 random positions on the equator, stayed there for an hour or two and picked up some rocks. Planetoid explored!

Mars, we've not even gone to. We've got some rock inspecting toys up there, but that's about it.

Venus, we've never been to there either. Our probes have sampled the atmosphere, that's about it. We still have no idea why it has such a strange rotation.

We have absolutely no credible statement to make about the prevalence of life in the solar system, let alone the universe. But hey, anonymous person on Slashdot, thanks setting us straight.

Flawed Proposition

[CheeseburgerBrown]

There aren't an infinite amount of planets -- there's like a golybillion. And everyone knows that infinity less a golybillion is a whopping sum, so your error is truly is staggering proportions.

The universe is largely transparent, and we can see almost all the way to its privates. The decorations are of the same style and motif throughout, so we can pit our local gravity-well spirlies against theirs and make some reasonable guesses about how far away far is. Since it turns out it's in the neighbourhood of 13 billion lightyears away, I think we can -- as civilized folk -- agree that 13 billion is more than a golybillion shy of infinity.

Check my maths if you're a stickler, but I'm pretty sure I'm on solid ground here.

Space is finite (if gummy), therefore the number of decorations whorled up by our familiar physics is finite, therefore the number of little planety lumps inside of them is finite. Q.E.D.