www.sciencedaily.com
The Hubble Space Telescope has discovered carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system. The exoplanet HD 189733 b, roughly the mass of Jupiter, orbits a star 63 light-years away in extremely close company. Although the planet can't be seen directly, scientists used Hubble data to analyze its atmospheric composition and turn up CO2 as well as carbon monoxide (CO). They did this by comparing the light spectrum from the star with that from the star and planet combined, as the planet passes in front of its star. The very fact that we're able to detect it and estimate its abundance is significant for the long-term effort of characterizing planets both to find out what they are made of and if they could be a possible host for life. Other chemical signatures familiar to Earthlings have already been turned up by astronomical observations, including on HD 189733 b.
From this discovery it is possible that another planet might be able to host human beings due to the presence or carbon dioxide and monoxide in the atmosphere. Scientists will continue to test the atmosphere for other characterizations that could conclude another planet to be livable by humans.
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This blog contains student opinions and postings about the concepts discussed during their study of chemistry.
1 comment:
3 Things Done Well:
1. Article was concise and quite understandable.
2. Article was written on a very interesting subject matter: using chemistry in another field of science - astronomy.
3. Article explained the important implications of the discovery.
2 Things to be Improved:
1. An explanation of why the planet passing in front of its sun was important to determining its atmosphere’s composition would have been nice.
2. A link to the exact article for further reading would have been nice.
1 Thing Learned:
1. That the chemical compositions of objects light-years away can be determined just through analyzing light emitted by them.
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