Water, water, everywhere!!

[beecee]

https://phys.org/news/2018-03-nasa-large-amount-exoplanet-atmosphere.html

NASA finds a large amount of water in an exoplanet's atmosphere

March 1, 2018, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Using Hubble and Spitzer, astronomers analyzed the atmosphere of the "hot Saturn" exoplanet WASP-39b, and they captured the most complete spectrum of an exoplanet's atmosphere possible with present-day technology. By dissecting starlight filtering through the planet's atmosphere into its component colors, the team found clear evidence for water vapor. Although the researchers predicted they would see water, they were surprised by how much water they found - three times as much water as Saturn has. This suggests that the planet formed farther out from the star, where it was bombarded by icy material. Credit: NASA, ESA, G. Bacon and A. Feild (STScI), and H. Wakeford (STScI/Univ. of Exeter)

Much like detectives 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.


Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-03-nasa-large-amount-exoplanet-atmosphere.html#jCp

 

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This then seems to suggest a hypothetical that I have heard a few times, particularly with the number of "hot Jupiter"planets found, and comparing with our own Jupiter...Planetary migration.

A nice WIKI article on this suggestion and the possible types at

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_migration

 

Edited March 1, 2018 by beecee