Thursday, September 25, 2014 6:30:41 AM
Major milestone in search for water on distant planets
In this artist's depiction, the Neptune-sized planet HAT-P-11b crosses in front of its star in the constellation Cygnus. Astronomers observe such crossings, or transits, to glean information about the atmospheres of distant planets. The blue part of the planet's rim is due to scattered light. The orange band in front of the star shows the region where water vapor was detected.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Because no clouds blocked the view, scientists were able to observe water vapor on a Neptune-sized planet for the first time. The smaller the planet, the more difficult it is to observe its atmosphere, and other small planets have been obscured by clouds. The upper atmosphere of HAT-P-11b appears nearly cloud-free, as shown in this artist's depiction. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Because no clouds blocked the view, scientists were able to observe water vapor on a Neptune-sized planet for the first time. The smaller the planet, the more difficult it is to observe its atmosphere, and other small planets have been obscured by clouds. The upper atmosphere of HAT-P-11b appears nearly cloud-free, as shown in this artist's depiction.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Astronomers have found water vapor in the atmosphere of a planet about four times bigger than Earth in the constellation Cygnus.
By the University of Maryland, College Park
Published: Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Astronomers have found water vapor in the atmosphere of a planet about four times bigger than Earth, in the constellation Cygnus about 124 light years - or nearly 729 trillion miles - from our home planet. In the quest to learn about planets beyond our solar system, this discovery marks the smallest planet for which scientists have been able to identify some chemical components of its atmosphere.
The researchers' findings were published Sept. 25, 2014 in the journal Nature [ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v513/n7519/full/nature13785.html ]. The team was led by UMD Astronomy [ http://www.astro.umd.edu/ ] Professor Drake Deming [ http://www.astro.umd.edu/people/ddeming.html ], an expert in the study of exoplanets, or planets that orbit suns outside our own solar system.
The finding of water vapor and hydrogen in the atmosphere of the exoplanet HAT P-11b is not only an astonishing piece of long-distance detective work, based on analyses of observations by three different NASA telescopes. It also suggests that astronomers' ideas about how the planets formed appear to hold true for other planetary systems, as they do in our own.
How do scientists detect water in distant exoplanets? They use a quirk of light that happens when a planet transits, or passes in front of, its host star. Material in the planet's atmosphere absorbs some of the star's light, and that makes the planet appear bigger – similar to the way our sun seems bigger at sunset, when we are looking to the horizon across a broad swath of Earth's atmosphere. By plotting changes in the exoplanet's apparent size, and relating them to the wavelength of electromagnetic radiation that the telescope observes, astronomers get a graph that shows how much of the star's radiation the planet's atmosphere is absorbing. The shape of that graph, called a transmission spectrum, can reveal what chemicals are present in the atmosphere.
The bigger the planet, the more obvious are the changes in the planet's size during its transit across its host star. Astronomers have used this technique to describe the atmospheres of several giant planets, the size of our solar system's Jupiter. In this study, the team wanted to analyze the atmosphere of a significantly smaller planet.
The team chose HAT P-11b, which was discovered by the Hungarian-made Automated Telescope (HAT) network. It's about four times the radius of Earth and about 26 times Earth's mass. Compared to planets in our solar system, HAT P-11b is closest in size to Neptune. But it is much closer to its host star and therefore much hotter, about 878 kelvins, or 1,120 degrees Fahrenheit. It probably has a rocky core, wrapped in a thick, gaseous envelope of about 90 percent hydrogen. Its atmosphere is cloudless at high altitude, but as the team found, it contains the signature of water vapor.
UMD graduate student Jonathan Fraine [ http://www.astro.umd.edu/~jfraine/simple/ ], the paper's lead author, observed HAT P-11b using two NASA telescopes — the Hubble Space Telescope, which measures visible and near-infrared light, and the Spitzer Space Telescope, which records only infrared light — between July 2011 and December 2012. The team compared those data to observations by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope, which was launched to look for exoplanets and continuously records images of the portion of the sky where HAT-P-11b is located.
Why do astronomers look for water on exoplanets? First, because water is a precondition for life – though the presence of water alone is not enough for life to arise. "The water molecule is widespread in the universe," says Deming. "Wherever you have hydrogen and oxygen, it naturally forms. Even some sun spots are cool enough to contain water vapor, although obviously it's far too hot for life on the sun."
Astronomers also want to test the hypothesis that other planets formed the same way ours did. In the primordial solar system, particles of dust and ice carried native electrical charges that caused them to stick together, like household "dust bunnies" do, in a process called core accretion. Early in this process the giant planets that formed far from the sun had enough gravitational pull to attract large amounts of hydrogen gas – the H in H2O.
In our solar system's giant planets, water freezes and precipitates out of the atmospheres, so it occurs only at levels that are difficult to observe. The closer-in, smaller planets, Mars, Venus and Earth, had water early in their evolution, though only Earth retains liquid water at the surface. The smaller the planet, astronomers believe, the more likely it is that heavier molecules like water vapor will be abundant along with hydrogen.
"Our ideas about the formation of planets have been developed to match our solar system," explains Deming, "and we don't know whether other planetary systems behave the same way. We want to test the fundamental question of whether small planets are rich in heavy elements, like the oxygen in water vapor."
The finding of water vapor and hydrogen on HAT P-11b "is a key piece of the puzzle," Deming says, consistent with astronomers' main ideas on the formation of planets.
This research was funded by the NASA Astrobiology Institute's Virtual Planet Laboratory, the Space Telescope Science Center (Program #12449), the Millennium Institute of Astrophysics of the Millennium Science Initiative, and the Chilean Ministry of the Economy (Project IC120009). The content of this article does not necessarily reflect the views of these organizations.
Copyright © 2014 University of Maryland, College Park
http://www.astronomy.com/news/2014/09/major-milestone-in-the-search-for-water-on-distant-planets [no comments yet] [original at http://cmns.umd.edu/news-events/features/2482 ; above text and images conformed]
*
Water vapour absorption in the clear atmosphere of a Neptune-sized exoplanet
Nature 513, 526–529 (25 September 2014)
doi:10.1038/nature13785
Received 04 April 2014
Accepted 07 August 2014
Published online 24 September 2014
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v513/n7519/full/nature13785.html
Wet exoplanet has clear skies
Neptune-sized orb is smallest alien world known to have water vapour.
http://www.nature.com/news/wet-exoplanet-has-clear-skies-1.15973 [no comments yet]
*
Clear Skies and Water Vapor Discovered on a Distant Planet -- "A Significant Milepost" Says NASA
September 24, 2014
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2014/09/-clear-skies-and-water-vapor-discovered-on-a-distant-planet-a-significant-milepost-says-nasa.html [no comments yet]
*
Water Vapor Seen on Distant World
The planet HAT-P-11b, shown in an artist's illustration, is the first Neptune-size world outside our solar system where astronomers have detected water.
Search for potentially life-sustaining worlds gets a boost with the ability to probe a common class of planets.
September 24, 2014
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140924-space-exoplanet-water-neptune-science-ngspace/ [with comment]
*
Water found in a Neptune-sized exoplanet’s atmosphere
HAT-P-11b is 4.7 times the size of Earth and has 25 Earth masses.
Light from the star that travels past the planet will have the spectrum of the star. Any light that travels through the atmosphere of the planet will have specific parts of the spectrum absorbed by molecules in the planet's atmosphere.
It's the smallest exoplanet yet to have water vapor discovered in its atmosphere.
Sept 24 2014
http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/09/water-found-in-a-neptune-sized-exoplanets-atmosphere/ [with comments]
*
Clear skies reveal water on distant Neptune-sized planet
Artwork: The exoplanet HAT-P-11b is four times the size of Earth, or about the same size as Neptune
A cloud-free atmosphere has allowed scientists to pick out signs of water vapour on a distant planet the size of Neptune: the smallest "exoplanet" ever to reveal its chemical composition.
24 September 2014
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29343987
*
Scientists hit new milestone in search for water on planets outside our solar system
A planet with an atmosphere of thick clouds, left, and a planet with clear skies illustrated here. The cloudless horizon of the planet on the right allowed astronomers to take a peek at its atmosphere.
September 24, 2014
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2014/09/24/scientists-hit-new-milestone-in-search-for-water-on-planets-outside-our-solar-system/ [with comments]
--
First evidence for water ice clouds found outside solar system
Water ice clouds exist on our gas giant planets but have not been seen beyond the planets orbiting our Sun until now.
By Carnegie Institution for Science, Washington, D.C.
Published: Wednesday, September 9, 2014
Washington, D.C.—A team of scientists led by Carnegie's Jacqueline Faherty [ http://home.dtm.ciw.edu/users/jfaherty/home.html ] has discovered the first evidence of water ice clouds on an object outside of our own Solar System. Water ice clouds exist on our own gas giant planets--Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune--but have not been seen outside of the planets orbiting our Sun until now. Their findings are published today by The Astrophysical Journal Letters and are available here [ http://arxiv.org/abs/1408.4671 , http://iopscience.iop.org/2041-8205/793/1/L16 ].
At the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, Faherty, along with a team including Carnegie's Andrew Monson, used the FourStar near infrared camera to detect the coldest brown dwarf ever characterized. Their findings are the result of 151 images taken over three nights and combined. The object, named WISE J085510.83-071442.5, or W0855, was first seen by NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Explorer mission and published earlier this year. But it was not known if it could be detected by Earth-based facilities.
"This was a battle at the telescope to get the detection," said Faherty.
Chris Tinney, an Astronomer at the Australian Centre for Astrobiology, UNSW Australia and co-author on the result stated: "This is a great result. This object is so faint and it’s exciting to be the first people to detect it with a telescope on the ground."
Brown dwarfs aren't quite very small stars, but they aren't quite giant planets either. They are too small to sustain the hydrogen fusion process that fuels stars. Their temperatures can range from nearly as hot as a star to as cool as a planet, and their masses also range between star-like and giant planet-like. They are of particular interest to scientists because they offer clues to star-formation processes. They also overlap with the temperatures of planets, but are much easier to study since they are commonly found in isolation.
W0855 is the fourth-closest system to our own Sun, practically a next-door neighbor in astronomical distances. A comparison of the team's near-infrared images of W0855 with models for predicting the atmospheric content of brown dwarfs showed evidence of frozen clouds of sulfide and water.
"Ice clouds are predicted to be very important in the atmospheres of planets beyond our Solar System, but they've never been observed outside of it before now," Faherty said.
The paper's other co-author is Andrew Skemer of the University of Arizona.
This work was supported by the Australian Research Council. It made use of data from the NASA WISE mission, which was a joint project of the University of California Los Angeles and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech, funded by NASA. It also made use of the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech, under contract with NASA.
Copyright © 2014 Carnegie Institution for Science
http://www.astronomy.com/news/2014/09/first-evidence-for-water-ice-clouds-found-outside-solar-system [with comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT3pvWleFoU [as embedded; comments disabled] [original at http://carnegiescience.edu/news/first_evidence_water_ice_clouds_found_outside_solar_system ; above date and text conformed]
*
Wow! Water Ice Clouds Suspected In Brown Dwarf Beyond The Solar System
Artist’s conception of brown dwarf WISE J085510.83-071442.5, which may host water ice clouds in its atmosphere.
September 12, 2014
http://www.universetoday.com/114526/wow-water-ice-clouds-suspected-in-brown-dwarf-beyond-the-solar-system/ [no comments yet]
*
First evidence for water-ice clouds outside our solar system
Artist's concept of brown dwarf W0855.
Stars near our sun.
The first evidence for water-ice clouds on an object beyond our solar system. It's a brown dwarf, one of our closest neighbors, only 7 light-years away.
Sep 12, 2014
http://earthsky.org/space/first-evidence-for-water-ice-clouds-outside-our-solar-system [with comments]
--
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In this artist's depiction, the Neptune-sized planet HAT-P-11b crosses in front of its star in the constellation Cygnus. Astronomers observe such crossings, or transits, to glean information about the atmospheres of distant planets. The blue part of the planet's rim is due to scattered light. The orange band in front of the star shows the region where water vapor was detected.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Because no clouds blocked the view, scientists were able to observe water vapor on a Neptune-sized planet for the first time. The smaller the planet, the more difficult it is to observe its atmosphere, and other small planets have been obscured by clouds. The upper atmosphere of HAT-P-11b appears nearly cloud-free, as shown in this artist's depiction. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Because no clouds blocked the view, scientists were able to observe water vapor on a Neptune-sized planet for the first time. The smaller the planet, the more difficult it is to observe its atmosphere, and other small planets have been obscured by clouds. The upper atmosphere of HAT-P-11b appears nearly cloud-free, as shown in this artist's depiction.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Astronomers have found water vapor in the atmosphere of a planet about four times bigger than Earth in the constellation Cygnus.
By the University of Maryland, College Park
Published: Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Astronomers have found water vapor in the atmosphere of a planet about four times bigger than Earth, in the constellation Cygnus about 124 light years - or nearly 729 trillion miles - from our home planet. In the quest to learn about planets beyond our solar system, this discovery marks the smallest planet for which scientists have been able to identify some chemical components of its atmosphere.
The researchers' findings were published Sept. 25, 2014 in the journal Nature [ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v513/n7519/full/nature13785.html ]. The team was led by UMD Astronomy [ http://www.astro.umd.edu/ ] Professor Drake Deming [ http://www.astro.umd.edu/people/ddeming.html ], an expert in the study of exoplanets, or planets that orbit suns outside our own solar system.
The finding of water vapor and hydrogen in the atmosphere of the exoplanet HAT P-11b is not only an astonishing piece of long-distance detective work, based on analyses of observations by three different NASA telescopes. It also suggests that astronomers' ideas about how the planets formed appear to hold true for other planetary systems, as they do in our own.
How do scientists detect water in distant exoplanets? They use a quirk of light that happens when a planet transits, or passes in front of, its host star. Material in the planet's atmosphere absorbs some of the star's light, and that makes the planet appear bigger – similar to the way our sun seems bigger at sunset, when we are looking to the horizon across a broad swath of Earth's atmosphere. By plotting changes in the exoplanet's apparent size, and relating them to the wavelength of electromagnetic radiation that the telescope observes, astronomers get a graph that shows how much of the star's radiation the planet's atmosphere is absorbing. The shape of that graph, called a transmission spectrum, can reveal what chemicals are present in the atmosphere.
The bigger the planet, the more obvious are the changes in the planet's size during its transit across its host star. Astronomers have used this technique to describe the atmospheres of several giant planets, the size of our solar system's Jupiter. In this study, the team wanted to analyze the atmosphere of a significantly smaller planet.
The team chose HAT P-11b, which was discovered by the Hungarian-made Automated Telescope (HAT) network. It's about four times the radius of Earth and about 26 times Earth's mass. Compared to planets in our solar system, HAT P-11b is closest in size to Neptune. But it is much closer to its host star and therefore much hotter, about 878 kelvins, or 1,120 degrees Fahrenheit. It probably has a rocky core, wrapped in a thick, gaseous envelope of about 90 percent hydrogen. Its atmosphere is cloudless at high altitude, but as the team found, it contains the signature of water vapor.
UMD graduate student Jonathan Fraine [ http://www.astro.umd.edu/~jfraine/simple/ ], the paper's lead author, observed HAT P-11b using two NASA telescopes — the Hubble Space Telescope, which measures visible and near-infrared light, and the Spitzer Space Telescope, which records only infrared light — between July 2011 and December 2012. The team compared those data to observations by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope, which was launched to look for exoplanets and continuously records images of the portion of the sky where HAT-P-11b is located.
Why do astronomers look for water on exoplanets? First, because water is a precondition for life – though the presence of water alone is not enough for life to arise. "The water molecule is widespread in the universe," says Deming. "Wherever you have hydrogen and oxygen, it naturally forms. Even some sun spots are cool enough to contain water vapor, although obviously it's far too hot for life on the sun."
Astronomers also want to test the hypothesis that other planets formed the same way ours did. In the primordial solar system, particles of dust and ice carried native electrical charges that caused them to stick together, like household "dust bunnies" do, in a process called core accretion. Early in this process the giant planets that formed far from the sun had enough gravitational pull to attract large amounts of hydrogen gas – the H in H2O.
In our solar system's giant planets, water freezes and precipitates out of the atmospheres, so it occurs only at levels that are difficult to observe. The closer-in, smaller planets, Mars, Venus and Earth, had water early in their evolution, though only Earth retains liquid water at the surface. The smaller the planet, astronomers believe, the more likely it is that heavier molecules like water vapor will be abundant along with hydrogen.
"Our ideas about the formation of planets have been developed to match our solar system," explains Deming, "and we don't know whether other planetary systems behave the same way. We want to test the fundamental question of whether small planets are rich in heavy elements, like the oxygen in water vapor."
The finding of water vapor and hydrogen on HAT P-11b "is a key piece of the puzzle," Deming says, consistent with astronomers' main ideas on the formation of planets.
This research was funded by the NASA Astrobiology Institute's Virtual Planet Laboratory, the Space Telescope Science Center (Program #12449), the Millennium Institute of Astrophysics of the Millennium Science Initiative, and the Chilean Ministry of the Economy (Project IC120009). The content of this article does not necessarily reflect the views of these organizations.
Copyright © 2014 University of Maryland, College Park
http://www.astronomy.com/news/2014/09/major-milestone-in-the-search-for-water-on-distant-planets [no comments yet] [original at http://cmns.umd.edu/news-events/features/2482 ; above text and images conformed]
*
Water vapour absorption in the clear atmosphere of a Neptune-sized exoplanet
Nature 513, 526–529 (25 September 2014)
doi:10.1038/nature13785
Received 04 April 2014
Accepted 07 August 2014
Published online 24 September 2014
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v513/n7519/full/nature13785.html
Wet exoplanet has clear skies
Neptune-sized orb is smallest alien world known to have water vapour.
http://www.nature.com/news/wet-exoplanet-has-clear-skies-1.15973 [no comments yet]
*
Clear Skies and Water Vapor Discovered on a Distant Planet -- "A Significant Milepost" Says NASA
September 24, 2014
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2014/09/-clear-skies-and-water-vapor-discovered-on-a-distant-planet-a-significant-milepost-says-nasa.html [no comments yet]
*
Water Vapor Seen on Distant World
The planet HAT-P-11b, shown in an artist's illustration, is the first Neptune-size world outside our solar system where astronomers have detected water.
Search for potentially life-sustaining worlds gets a boost with the ability to probe a common class of planets.
September 24, 2014
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140924-space-exoplanet-water-neptune-science-ngspace/ [with comment]
*
Water found in a Neptune-sized exoplanet’s atmosphere
HAT-P-11b is 4.7 times the size of Earth and has 25 Earth masses.
Light from the star that travels past the planet will have the spectrum of the star. Any light that travels through the atmosphere of the planet will have specific parts of the spectrum absorbed by molecules in the planet's atmosphere.
It's the smallest exoplanet yet to have water vapor discovered in its atmosphere.
Sept 24 2014
http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/09/water-found-in-a-neptune-sized-exoplanets-atmosphere/ [with comments]
*
Clear skies reveal water on distant Neptune-sized planet
Artwork: The exoplanet HAT-P-11b is four times the size of Earth, or about the same size as Neptune
A cloud-free atmosphere has allowed scientists to pick out signs of water vapour on a distant planet the size of Neptune: the smallest "exoplanet" ever to reveal its chemical composition.
24 September 2014
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29343987
*
Scientists hit new milestone in search for water on planets outside our solar system
A planet with an atmosphere of thick clouds, left, and a planet with clear skies illustrated here. The cloudless horizon of the planet on the right allowed astronomers to take a peek at its atmosphere.
September 24, 2014
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2014/09/24/scientists-hit-new-milestone-in-search-for-water-on-planets-outside-our-solar-system/ [with comments]
--
First evidence for water ice clouds found outside solar system
Water ice clouds exist on our gas giant planets but have not been seen beyond the planets orbiting our Sun until now.
By Carnegie Institution for Science, Washington, D.C.
Published: Wednesday, September 9, 2014
Washington, D.C.—A team of scientists led by Carnegie's Jacqueline Faherty [ http://home.dtm.ciw.edu/users/jfaherty/home.html ] has discovered the first evidence of water ice clouds on an object outside of our own Solar System. Water ice clouds exist on our own gas giant planets--Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune--but have not been seen outside of the planets orbiting our Sun until now. Their findings are published today by The Astrophysical Journal Letters and are available here [ http://arxiv.org/abs/1408.4671 , http://iopscience.iop.org/2041-8205/793/1/L16 ].
At the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, Faherty, along with a team including Carnegie's Andrew Monson, used the FourStar near infrared camera to detect the coldest brown dwarf ever characterized. Their findings are the result of 151 images taken over three nights and combined. The object, named WISE J085510.83-071442.5, or W0855, was first seen by NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Explorer mission and published earlier this year. But it was not known if it could be detected by Earth-based facilities.
"This was a battle at the telescope to get the detection," said Faherty.
Chris Tinney, an Astronomer at the Australian Centre for Astrobiology, UNSW Australia and co-author on the result stated: "This is a great result. This object is so faint and it’s exciting to be the first people to detect it with a telescope on the ground."
Brown dwarfs aren't quite very small stars, but they aren't quite giant planets either. They are too small to sustain the hydrogen fusion process that fuels stars. Their temperatures can range from nearly as hot as a star to as cool as a planet, and their masses also range between star-like and giant planet-like. They are of particular interest to scientists because they offer clues to star-formation processes. They also overlap with the temperatures of planets, but are much easier to study since they are commonly found in isolation.
W0855 is the fourth-closest system to our own Sun, practically a next-door neighbor in astronomical distances. A comparison of the team's near-infrared images of W0855 with models for predicting the atmospheric content of brown dwarfs showed evidence of frozen clouds of sulfide and water.
"Ice clouds are predicted to be very important in the atmospheres of planets beyond our Solar System, but they've never been observed outside of it before now," Faherty said.
The paper's other co-author is Andrew Skemer of the University of Arizona.
This work was supported by the Australian Research Council. It made use of data from the NASA WISE mission, which was a joint project of the University of California Los Angeles and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech, funded by NASA. It also made use of the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech, under contract with NASA.
Copyright © 2014 Carnegie Institution for Science
http://www.astronomy.com/news/2014/09/first-evidence-for-water-ice-clouds-found-outside-solar-system [with comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT3pvWleFoU [as embedded; comments disabled] [original at http://carnegiescience.edu/news/first_evidence_water_ice_clouds_found_outside_solar_system ; above date and text conformed]
*
Wow! Water Ice Clouds Suspected In Brown Dwarf Beyond The Solar System
Artist’s conception of brown dwarf WISE J085510.83-071442.5, which may host water ice clouds in its atmosphere.
September 12, 2014
http://www.universetoday.com/114526/wow-water-ice-clouds-suspected-in-brown-dwarf-beyond-the-solar-system/ [no comments yet]
*
First evidence for water-ice clouds outside our solar system
Artist's concept of brown dwarf W0855.
Stars near our sun.
The first evidence for water-ice clouds on an object beyond our solar system. It's a brown dwarf, one of our closest neighbors, only 7 light-years away.
Sep 12, 2014
http://earthsky.org/space/first-evidence-for-water-ice-clouds-outside-our-solar-system [with comments]
--
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