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According to NASA, the newly discovered exoplanet is as hot as Venus.
New Delhi:
In a breakthrough, NASA astronomers have identified the smallest exoplanet using a Hubble space telescope where water vapor has been detected in the atmosphere. Planet GJ 9827d, only about twice the diameter of Earth, could be an example of potential planets with water-rich atmospheres elsewhere in our galaxy.
The newly discovered exoplanet is as hot as Venus, at 800 degrees Fahrenheit, according to NASA.
GJ 9827d was discovered by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope in 2017 and completes an orbit around a red dwarf star every 6.2 days. According to NASA, the star GJ 9827 is located 97 light years from Earth, in the constellation of Pisces.
“This would be the first time we can demonstrate directly through atmospheric detection that these planets with water-rich atmospheres can actually exist around other stars,” said team member Bjorn Benneke of the Trottier Institute for Exoplanet Research at the University of California. University of Montreal. .
“This is an important step toward determining the prevalence and diversity of atmospheres on rocky planets.”
“Until now we had not been able to directly detect the atmosphere of such a small planet. And now we are gradually adapting to this regime,” Benneke added.
Offering information about planet GJ 9827d, Benneke said: “Currently, the team is left with two possibilities. The planet is still clinging to a hydrogen-rich, water-coated envelope, making it a mini-Neptune. Alternatively, it could be a warmer version of Jupiter’s moon Europa, which has twice as much water as Earth under its crust.
“Planet GJ 9827d could be half water, half rock. And there would be a lot of water vapor on top of some smaller rocky body,” he said.
According to the space agency, the Hubble program observed planet GJ 9827d spaced out during 11 transits over a three-year span. During transits, starlight filters through the planet’s atmosphere and bears the spectral signature of water molecules, he said.
“Looking at water is a gateway to finding other things,” said Thomas Greene, an astrophysicist at NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California.
The space agency is now focused on discovering a planet’s total inventory of elements that can be used to compare it to the star it orbits and understand its formation.