Smallest exoplanet with water vapour found

[unhappycamper]

http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/smallest-exoplanet-with-water-vapour-found-114092500608_1.html

Smallest exoplanet with water vapour found
Press Trust of India | London
September 25, 2014 Last Updated at 15:40 IST

Scientists, including one of Indian-origin, have detected clear skies and water vapour in the atmosphere of a Neptune-sized planet outside of our Solar System.

The planet, known as HAT-P-11b, is the smallest exoplanet ever on which water vapour has been detected, researchers said.

The discovery, which used data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Kepler Space Telescope, is a milestone on the road to eventually finding molecules in the atmospheres of smaller, rocky planets more akin to Earth, researchers said.

Finding clear skies on a Neptune-sized planet is a good sign that some smaller planets might also have similarly good visibility, they said.

[Gothmog]

1. Thanks for posting

That is very interesting