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It would be the greatest discovery of mankind: the evidence that extraterrestrial life exists. Now researchers have discovered an exoplanet at least evidence of a water-rich atmosphere.
divJapanese astronomers have spotted a distant planet with evidence of a water-rich atmosphere. The observations of the so-called super-Earth suggested that this planet possess at least a lot of water vapor clouds in its atmosphere, shared with the Subaru Observatory in Hawaii.
water is a prerequisite for life as we know it. Notes on life, astronomers have not found on the planet.
The analyzed super-Earth Gliese 1214b with the catalog number is about 40 light-years away from Earth and orbits a sun in the constellation Ophiuchus (Ophiuchus). Thus, the extrasolar planet (exoplanet) is one of our cosmic neighborhood.
Bigger than the Earth, Uranus small
as super-Earths Astronomers call such exoplanets that are larger than Earth but smaller than the smallest gas giant planets in our solar system, so Uranus and Neptune. Whether super-Earths have a solid surface like the rocky planets in our solar system or rather resemble the gas giants, is not yet understood.
Gliese 1214b travels from Earth seen regularly to its host star over. The astronomers to Norio Narita National Astronomical Observatory of Japan used this to shine through the atmosphere of the super-Earth.
No evidence of Rayleigh scattering
They investigated whether short-wavelength light is scattered more of the planet’s atmosphere as long wave. This so-called Rayleigh scattering ensures, for example on the ground that the cloudless daytime sky appears blue because of the short wavelength blue portion of sunlight is much more dispersed than the red.
In the super-Earth in the constellation Ophiuchus, the astronomers could find no evidence of Rayleigh scattering in the atmosphere, as they report in the journal “The Astrophysical Journal”.
Together with previous observations, the astronomers see in this finding, a clear indication of a water-rich atmosphere or at least clouds. Water vapor absorbs visible light at all wavelengths relatively uniform.
Scientists hope to be able to support their conclusion with other observations in the near future.
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