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Extrasolar Planet's Light Observed

Posted by jamie on from the insanely-precise-spectral-analysis dept.

Last week we ran a story about a visually-detected planet orbiting HD 209458 - its star dimmed when the planet passed before it. Today, Richey points us to a "a BBC story about how astronomers have actually picked up light reflecting off an extrasolar planet. They've managed to perform a basic analysis of its atmosphere from it." Check out the three elements they believe they found.

1 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. Vaporized Rock, or, Oxygen != Life by ENOENT · · Score: 4

    In this case, the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere does not indicate the presence of life. In fact, given the two other elements detected (silicon and magnesium), it indicates a climate that is singularly inhospitable to any biology at all.

    The atmosphere is vaporized rock. Now that's hot.

    Rocks, at least the crustal rocks on Earth, consist mainly of oxygen, silicon, and magnesium, with a few trace elements to make things interesting.

    Given that this planet is so close to its star, it's not surprising that the surface tempurature is hot enough to boil rocks.

    --
    That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.