Water Detected In Five Exoplanets' Atmospheres By Hubble Space Telescope

Clear ‘Water Signature’ Detected On Multiple Alien Worlds

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has detected water in the atmospheres of five planets beyond our solar system, two recent studies reveal.

The five exoplanets with hints of water are all scorching-hot, Jupiter-size worlds that are unlikely to host life as we know it. But finding water in their atmospheres still marks a step forward in the search for distant planets that may be capable of supporting alien life, researchers said.

“We’re very confident that we see a water signature for multiple planets,” Avi Mandell, of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., lead author of one of the studies, said in a statement. “This work really opens the door for comparing how much water is present in atmospheres on different kinds of exoplanets — for example, hotter versus cooler ones.”

This NASA graphic shows how astronomers determine what is in the atmosphere of an exoplanet. Astronomers track the planet as it passes in front of its host star and study which wavelengths of light are absorbed.

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