{"id":8402,"date":"2014-07-24T16:44:57","date_gmt":"2014-07-24T20:44:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=8402"},"modified":"2014-07-24T16:44:57","modified_gmt":"2014-07-24T20:44:57","slug":"hubble-finds-three-jupiter-sized-exoplanets-to-be-surprisingly-dry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=8402","title":{"rendered":"Hubble finds three Jupiter sized exoplanets to be surprisingly dry"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Hubble telescope looks at three gas giants, or “Hot Jupiters”, around distant stars that are similar to our sun and find little sign of water:\u00a0Surprised scientists come up \u2018nearly dry\u2019 in search for water on \u2018hot Jupiter\u2019 planets – The Washington Post<\/a><\/p>\n

Here is the NASA press release:<\/p>\n

Hubble Finds Three Surprisingly Dry Exoplanets<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have gone looking for water vapor in the atmospheres of three planets orbiting stars similar to the sun — and have come up nearly dry.<\/p>\n

The three planets, known as HD 189733b, HD 209458b, and WASP-12b, are between 60 and 900 light-years away from Earth and were thought to be ideal candidates for detecting water vapor in their atmospheres because of their high temperatures where water turns into a measurable vapor.<\/p>\n

These so-called \u201chot Jupiters\u201d are so close to their star they have temperatures between 1,500 and 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit, however, the planets were found to have only one-tenth to one one-thousandth the amount of water predicted by standard planet-formation theories.<\/p>\n

“Our water measurement in one of the planets, HD 209458b, is the highest-precision measurement of any chemical compound in a planet outside our solar system, and we can now say with much greater certainty than ever before that we’ve found water in an exoplanet,” said Nikku Madhusudhan of the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge, England. “However, the low water abundance we have found so far is quite astonishing.”<\/p>\n

Madhusudhan, who led the research, said that this finding presents a major challenge to exoplanet theory. “It basically opens a whole can of worms in planet formation. We expected all these planets to have lots of water in them. We have to revisit planet formation and migration models of giant planets, especially \u201chot Jupiters,\u201d and investigate how they’re formed.”<\/p>\n

He emphasizes that these results may have major implications in the search for water in potentially habitable Earth-sized exoplanets. Instruments on future space telescopes may need to be designed with a higher sensitivity if target planets are drier than predicted. “We should be prepared for much lower water abundances than predicted when looking at super-Earths (rocky planets that are several times the mass of Earth),” Madhusudhan said.<\/p>\n

Using near-infrared spectra of the planets observed with Hubble, Madhusudhan and his collaborators estimated the amount of water vapor in each of the planetary atmospheres that explains the data.<\/p>\n

The planets were selected because they orbit relatively bright stars that provide enough radiation for an infrared-light spectrum to be taken. Absorption features from the water vapor in the planet’s atmosphere are detected because they are superimposed on the small amount of starlight that glances through the planet’s atmosphere.<\/p>\n

Detecting water is almost impossible for transiting planets from the ground because Earth’s atmosphere has a lot of water in it, which contaminates the observation. “We really need the Hubble Space Telescope to make such observations,” said Nicolas Crouzet of the Dunlap Institute at the University of Toronto and co-author of the study.<\/p>\n

The currently accepted theory on how giant planets in our solar system formed, known as core accretion, states a planet is formed around the young star in a protoplanetary disk made primarily of hydrogen, helium, and particles of ices and dust composed of other chemical elements. The dust particles stick to each other, eventually forming larger and larger grains. The gravitational forces of the disk draw in these grains and larger particles until a solid core forms. This then leads to runaway accretion of both solids and gas to eventually form a giant planet.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Planet<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
This is an artistic illustration of the gas giant planet HD 209458b in the constellation<\/em>
\n Pegasus.\u00a0To the surprise of astronomers, they have found much less water<\/em>
\n vapor in the hot world\u2019s atmosphere than standard planet-formation models<\/em>
\n predict. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, G. Bacon (STScI) and N. Madhusudhan (UC)<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

This theory predicts that the proportions of the different elements in the planet are enhanced relative to those in its star, especially oxygen, which is supposed to be the most enhanced. Once the giant planet forms, its atmospheric oxygen is expected to be largely encompassed within water molecules. The very low levels of water vapor found by this research raise a number of questions about the chemical ingredients that lead to planet formation.<\/p>\n

“There are so many things we still don’t know about exoplanets, so this opens up a new chapter in understanding how planets and solar systems form,” said Drake Deming of the University of Maryland, who led one of the precursor studies. “The problem is that we are assuming the water to be as abundant as in our own solar system. What our study has shown is that water features could be a lot weaker than our expectations.”<\/p>\n

The findings are published July 24 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.<\/p>\n

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington.<\/p>\n

For images and more information about Hubble, visit:\u00a0www.nasa.gov\/hubble<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

and\u00a0hubblesite.org\/news\/2014\/36<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Hubble telescope looks at three gas giants, or “Hot Jupiters”, around distant stars that are similar to our sun and find little sign of water:\u00a0Surprised scientists come up \u2018nearly dry\u2019 in search for water on \u2018hot Jupiter\u2019 planets – The Washington Post Here is the NASA press release: Hubble Finds Three Surprisingly Dry Exoplanets … Continue reading Hubble finds three Jupiter sized exoplanets to be surprisingly dry<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy","category-exoplanets"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p34aWK-2bw","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11885,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=11885","url_meta":{"origin":8402,"position":0},"title":"ESA\/Hubble: Study of 10 exo-Jupiter planets finds where the water is hiding","author":"TopSpacer","date":"December 14, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"A report from the\u00a0ESA\/Hubble\u00a0team: Hubble reveals diversity of exoplanet atmospheres Largest ever comparative study solves missing water mystery Astronomers have used the NASA\/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope to study the atmospheres of ten hot, Jupiter-sized exoplanets in detail, the largest number of such planets ever\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Astronomy"","block_context":{"text":"Astronomy","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"This image shows an artist\u2019s impression of the ten hot Jupiter exoplanets studied by David Sing and his colleagues. From top left to to lower left these planets are WASP-12b, WASP-6b, WASP-31b, WASP-39b, HD 189733b, HAT-P-12b, WASP-17b, WASP-19b, HAT-P-1b and HD 209458b. The images are to scale with each other. HAT-P-12b, the smallest of them, is approximately the size of Jupiter, while WASP-17b, the largest planet in the sample, is almost twice the size. The planets are also depicted with a variety of different cloud properties. There is almost no information about the colours of the planets available, with the exception of HD 189733b, which became known as the blue planet (heic1312). The hottest planets within the sample are portrayed with a glowing night side. This effect is strongest on WASP-12b, the hottest exoplanet in the sample, but also visible on WASP-19b and WASP-17b. It is also known that several of the planets exhibit strong Rayleigh scattering. This effect causes the blue hue of the daytime sky and the reddening of the Sun at sunset on Earth. It is also visible as a blue edge on the planets WASP-6b, HD 189733b, HAT-P-12b, and HD 209458b. The wind patterns shown on these ten planets, which resemble the visible structures on Jupiter, are based on theoretical models.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/heic1524a1-1024x625.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3322,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=3322","url_meta":{"origin":8402,"position":1},"title":"Hubble determines the color of an exoplanet for the first time","author":"TopSpacer","date":"July 11, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The Hubble telescope has determined the true color of an exoplanet for the first time: Hubble spots azure blue planet Astronomers using the NASA\/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have, for the first time, determined the true colour of a planet orbiting another star. 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