Water
Has Been Found On One Of The First Exoplanets We Ever Discovered
Astronomers found the first exoplanet orbiting a star like our
Sun Back in
1995. Now, we’ve detected water in its atmosphere.
It is 51 light-years away, called 51 Pegasi
b, and is a gaseous planet that orbits very close to its star.
It’s unlikely the water is liquid, but rather a vapor in the planet’s atmosphere.
Even so, the detection is important because it highlights a new way that we can look at exoplanets.
Using the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, the team were able to observe the orbit of the planet for 4 hours.
They could see the shift in its light as the planet moved away and towards Earth.
They found a clear detection of water, described as “pretty rock solid” by team member Matteo Brogi at the University of Colorado,
Boulder.
