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Water Discovered In Exoplanet Atmosphere
PattonPending sends news of the discovery of the smallest exoplanet yet to have water vapor in its atmosphere. Astronomers have detected water vapor in the atmosphere of a planet that orbits a star far beyond our solar system. Observations of the Neptune-sized planet, which lies 120 light years from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus, revealed that its atmosphere was mostly hydrogen with around 25% made up from water va-pour. Until now, researchers have been frustrated in their efforts to study the atmospheres of planets much smaller than Jupiter because their skies were thick with clouds. The problem was so persistent that astronomers had begun to think that all warm, small planets formed with substantial cloud cover. But writing in the journal Nature, scientists in the U.S. describe how they found a Neptune-sized planet with cloud-free skies, enabling them to make detailed measurements of a small planet's atmosphere for the first time.
Wa-tor Va-pour.
Wonder what Jor-El and Kal-El think.
Um, if the planet has clouds, doesn't that mean you've already discovered water in the atmosphere?
(Assuming the cloud is water droplets and not methane or whatever.)
I don't know, but it sounds expensive and most likely french.
And its not likely to be habitable by life as we know it, Jim since its a gas giant with mostly hydrogen atmosphere.
I believe the only place we know in the universe where liquid water flows on the surface of a planet is on earth. Liquid water flowing on the surface or close to it is thought to likely be a required prerequisite to evolve life as we know it. That's why it's important.
Never mind the water vapor in the atmosphere for a moment and read the last part again.
"a planet that orbits a star far beyond our solar system."
I sure as hell hope so, otherwise that star would be in our own solar system and we'd have a huge problem on our hands.
One would assume that it's a safe bet it's common in most other systems as well...
I guess if one was ignorant of the past 300 years of science one might do that. Otherwise, it would be too obviously stupid, as it would require believing something trivially and completely false: that what we assume is particularly likely to be true.
Why not just assume the sun moves around the Earth? It's obvious, isn't it?
In the present case, there is a whole bunch of stuff to be interested in.
1) There is always the possibility that the chemical environment or formation process of the Earth or solar system was anomalous in some way. For example, it has us in it, and as near as we can tell intelligence of the specifically human, universally representational, machine-building kind is fairly rare (there is no evidence for it elsewhere.) So given that, it is not implausible that there are other weird things about our solar system, and we should likely be cautious about assuming that other planetary systems are much like ours. The astonishing discovery of hot Jupiters, for example, is an instance where we were looking for something that we were almost certain didn't exist (simply because it was the only place our current instruments were sensitive) and found something, quite unexpectedly.
2) Even given that water is common (which we don't know until we've measured it) there is the possibility that it is almost always sequestered in dense, cloudy atmospheres, or in icy outer planets, or cometary halos, etc.
3) Even given that clear atmospheres exist (which we didn't know until these guys measured it) we don't know what their typical composition is (and we still don't, based on a population of one.)
4) Even given that clear atmospheres have water (which we now know) we are most interested in finding Earth-like planets, which means a clear atmosphere with water and oxygen (which is a key signature for life as we know it). Testing out various detection ideas and proving they work is a huge step forward even if the first planet they found has a hydrogen atmosphere.
So there, just off the top of my head, are a few reasons. Assumptions don't produce knowledge, which is why we shouldn't give them much credence. Observations do produce knowledge, which is why we should be excited about a new mode of observation finally bearing fruit.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
samzen-pous
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Because, even though we assume water vapor is common, we don't have much evidence of that being true. And often our assumptions are incorrect. So having credible evidence is much more comforting than declaring it a 'safe bet'.
Further, the reason why we are so wound up about water is that we know that life exists in such an environment. We can propose other solvents but all that is unknown.
And further, TFA is establishing a methodology to look for water in other exoplanets so we can hopefully find out how common (or uncommon it is).
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
sam-zenpous
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
says Wiki:
However, the orbit of this planet is eccentric, at around 0.198, unusually high for hot Neptunes. HAT-P-11b's orbit is also highly inclined, with a tilt of approximately 103 degrees relative to its star's rotation.
The planet is a hot neptune, meaning it is almost in size equal to neptune, and the eccentric orbit is the eccentricity of the elliptical orbit. for a exact circle, it's eccentricity is 1. for a hyperbola, it's > 1, and for ellipse, it's Also, "the HAT acronym stands for Hungarian-made Automated Telescope, because it was developed by a small group of Hungarians who met through the Hungarian Astronomical Association", is what wiki says on the nomenclature HAT.
Hydrogen is known, to the best that the last 300 years of science can tell us, to be the most common element in the universe and oxygen is the third most common. Oxygen and hydrogen combine through a simple chemical reaction to form water. Hydrogen is hurled energetically outward from stars. For water to _not_ be common in most systems would require extra weirdness. It is true though that various processes might sequester it all in an oort-cloud-like region, but there's no good reason to think that wouldn't be highly unusual.
The problem with assuming that, is that it implies that the limits we have on engineering with real, actual materials will also be the same all across the universe. No dilithium, no unobtainium, no red matter, no warp drives, no magical materials.
The ridiculousness of some of the fictional materials you mention aside, it's looking more and more as if the majority of the mass of the universe is made up of non-baryonic matter that we can't identify. There also may be stable super-heavy elements we might discover some day, as well as non-standard arrangements of baryons that might also be stable. Maybe we'll also be able to make hybrid forms of baryonic/non-baryonic matter or novel arrangements of all sorts of other particle types. Then there's an entire theoretical periodic table of antimatter as well. We've only gotten as far as making anti-helium so far.
So, there are a lot of potential "real, actual" materials we may be able to play with some day, not to mention all kinds of chemical and nuclear tricks we still may have to learn with the materials we already have.
Once, the alchemists were crazy to think that elements could be transmuted. Then we learned more about the nature of matter and about atoms and chemical and nuclear bonds and it became even more obvious that the alchemists were crazy. Then we figured out that you actually can transmute elements. Your attitude that, essentially, everything has been discovered is just as bad as the attitude that anything is possible.
What's important about this, is the fact they have been able to see spectral lines in an exoplanet atmosphere. Okay, so in this case they saw boring water, but if this technique can be refined to check other (smaller) planets, we can see what other atmosphere compositions we can find. Some of them may point to life.
What the hell are you even talking about?
" (which is a key signature for life as we know it)"
Which you're assuming means the same as here!!??
Life as we know it would by definition be the same as here. That doesn't mean there aren't other, unfamiliar forms of life.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
after all Cygnus Rocks!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
> "water va-pour"
Sounds like the name of a new DC comic character.
She's a cutie, too. Secret identity real name: Lee Quid.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I expected 95% of the comments to be critical or make fun of "va-pour". Slashdot, you've let me down.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
And it is thought that the water on earth did not all come from comets, as there is too much for that to happen. They now think that it came from processes within the earth itself. So the basic ideas are still changing.