NASA's Hubble space telescope has made the first detection ever of an organic molecule in the atmosphere of a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting another star.
This breakthrough is an important step in eventually identifying signs of life on a planet outside our solar system, announced NASA in a statement posted Wednesday on its website.
The molecule found by Hubble is methane, which under the right circumstances can play a key role in prebiotic chemistry -- the chemical reactions considered necessary to form life as we know it.
"This is a crucial stepping stone to eventually characterizing prebiotic molecules on planets where life could exist," said Mark Swain of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who led the team that made the discovery. Swain is lead author of a paper appearing in the March 20 issue of Nature.
Using Hubble's observations, the astronomers also confirms the existence of water molecules in the planet's atmosphere, a discovery made originally by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope in 2007. "With this observation there is no question whether there is water or not -- water is present," said Swain.
The planet now known to have methane and water is located 63 light-years away in the constellation Vulpecula. Called HD 189733b,the planet is so massive and so hot it is considered an unlikely host for life. It is dubbed a "hot Jupiter," because it is so close to its parent star it takes just over two days to complete an orbit.
Hubble detected the organic molecules on this planet by using spectroscopy, which splits light into its components to reveal the "fingerprints" of various chemicals.
Though the star-hugger planet is too hot for life as we know it, "this observation is proof that spectroscopy can eventually be done on a cooler and potentially habitable Earth-sized planet orbiting a dimmer red dwarf-type star," Swain said.
The ultimate goal of studies like this is to identify prebiotic molecules in the atmospheres of planets in the "habitable zones" around other stars, where temperatures are right for water to remain liquid rather than freeze or evaporate away.
Source: Xinhua
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