Scientists Discover Signs of Water on Nearby Planet - PC Magazine

September 5, 2013 03:30pm EST Is there a water planet just 42 light years from Earth? Japanese scientists this week said their investigations of a nearby exoplanet suggest it "is likely to have a water-rich atmosphere." Gliese 1214 b (GJ 1214 b), discovered in 2009, is a so-called super-Earth—an extrasolar planet that's larger and more massive than our own but significantly smaller than icy giants like Uranus or Neptune. Not much is known about super-Earths, how they form, or why our own solar system doesn't have one despite their apparent prevalence in other star systems. But now it appears that we may have a better idea of the atmospheric conditions on at least one of them. GJ 1214-b is located in the constellation Ophiuchus and is about 2.5 times the size of Earth and about seven times more massive. While GJ 1214-b isn't listed as a prime candidate for life among known exoplanets orbiting within their stars' habitable zones, it was suspected of having liquid water from the time of its discovery. The main reasons scientists don't think GJ 1214-b supports life is that it is likely to be considerably hotter than Earth and walled in by a much thicker atmosphere. Also, its star is much smaller and dimmer than our own. Using a pair of optical cameras in the Subaru Telescope, the Japanese research team observed the planetary transits of GJ 1214 b in an investigation into the super-Earth's atmospheric composition, the scientists said. The team said a lack of strong Rayleigh scattering in their observations made it unlikely the planet possesses a "cloudless hydrogen-dominated atmosphere," and instead "implies that the planet has a water-rich or a hydrogen-dominated atmosphere with extensive clouds." The research team said previous data collected from observing GJ 1214 b in different colors suggested that it's more likely the planet has a cloudy, water-rich atmosphere rather than one dominated by hydrogen clouds. Though the researchers said GJ 1214-b's "very faint host star in blue light poses a challenge for researchers seeking to determine whether or not the planet's atmosphere has strong Rayleigh scattering," they were able to achieve extremely sensitive results using the Subaru Telescope's powerful light-collecting 8.2 m mirror. via Science - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNGzn1HjP3NUbVty3gSdXqTjEaEWkw&url=http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2424036,00.asp

Put the internet to work for you. via Personal Recipe 2954071