Sensing minuscule modifications to a star’s light is very difficult from the ground, where our planet’s atmosphere makes stars appear blurry. This means the atmospheres may be more shallow and rich in heavier gases like those found in Earth’s atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide, methane and oxygen. Hubble revealed that at least three of the habitable-zone exoplanets do not seem to exhibit puffy, hydrogen-rich atmospheres similar to gaseous planets such as Neptune. Four of these planets lie in the star’s habitable zone. Only 40 light-years away - a stone’s throw on the scale of our galaxy - scientists found seven planets orbiting the red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1. In 2018, astronomers Hubble conducted the first spectroscopic survey of several Earth-sized planets orbiting in their star’s habitable zone, a region at a distance from the star where liquid water, the key to life as we know it, could exist on the planets’ surfaces. This was the first organic molecule identified in the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system. In the atmosphere exoplanet HD 189733 b, located 63 light-years away, Hubble detected methane. Since then, astronomers have used Hubble to investigate many planetary atmospheres. Researchers analyzed starlight passing through HD 209458 b’s atmosphere to try to decipher what it is made of. As a planet passes between its star and us, a small amount of light from the star is absorbed by the gas in the planet’s atmosphere, leaving chemical “fingerprints” in the star’s light. ![]() Hubble became the first telescope to directly detect an exoplanet’s atmosphere and survey its makeup. This quest took a huge leap forward in 2000 when Hubble studied the exoplanet HD 209458 b, the first extrasolar planet known to make “transits” across the face of its star. Four Successful Women Behind the Hubble Space Telescope's AchievementsĪre There Habitable Planets Outside Our Solar System?įor as long as we’ve gazed up at the stars, we’ve pondered this question: Is there life elsewhere in the universe? One way to begin to explore the answer is to determine what is in a planet’s atmosphere.Characterizing Planets Around Other Stars.Measuring the Universe's Expansion Rate.
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