Much like detectives who study fingerprints to identify the culprit, scientists used NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes to find the “fingerprints” of water in the atmosphere of a hot, bloated, Saturn-mass exoplanet some 700 light-years away. And, they found a lot of water. In fact, the planet, known as WASP-39b, has three times as much water as Saturn does.
NASA Finds a Large Amount of Water in an Exoplanet's Atmosphere
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Field Guides
New Clues to TRAPPIST-1 Planet Compositions, Atmospheres
In the year since NASA announced the seven Earth-sized planets of the TRAPPIST-1 system, scientists have been working hard to better understand these enticing worlds just 40 light-years away. Thanks to data from a combination of space- and ground-based telescopes, we know more about TRAPPIST-1 than any other planetary system besides our solar system.
A ‘hot Jupiter’ with unusual winds
The hottest point on a gaseous planet near a distant star isn’t where astrophysicists expected it to be – a discovery that challenges scientists’ understanding of the many planets of this type found in solar systems outside our own.
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