Signs of Life Found Orbiting an Exoplanet–Sort of

The possible detection of methane in the atmosphere of a distant planet could be the next big step in the search for life outside our solar system
By Gregory Mone Posted 03.20.2008 at 9:42 am 5 Comments
Jupiter-Sized Planet Shows Signs of Life: An artist's impression of the planet in question, HD 189733b Photo by ESA, NASA and G. Tinetti (University College London, UK & ESA)

Everyone seems to be double-extra-cautiously optimistic about this finding, so don’t go running out to your telescope tonight looking for greetings from friendly space creatures.

But in work reported today in Nature, astronomers say they used the Hubble Space Telescope’s infrared imager to pick up signs of methane in the atmosphere of a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting a star some 63 million light years from Earth. And methane, an organic molecule, is an indicator of the possible presence of life.

The bad news, for ET fans, is that the planet is probably too close to its host star to support the kind of life we’re all really looking for. The good news is that the very presence of methane, and water, in the planet’s atmosphere could be evidence that some form of life may be out there, either on this planet or others. Methane is key to the formation of amino acids, the basic building blocks of organisms.

Another key takeaway from this work, scientists say, is that astronomers have now moved from simply finding these planets—a not-so-simple job in and of itself—to exploring them chemically.

5 Comments

Comments

HyDroLine
Article Rating:
1
2
3
4
5
 03/20/08 at 1:28 pm

DID YOU KNOW THAT METHANE EQUALS TO
CH4 + 2O2 → CO2 + 2H2O
I just wonder how do they get the Hubble Telescope to see such
images.

1 out of 1 people found this comment helpful
imaduck
Article Rating:
1
2
3
4
5
 03/20/08 at 10:01 pm

Hydroline - They took an infra-red spectrum while the planet was in front of the star. Then, they looked for methane and H20 absorption lines in that spectrum. To verify these results, they waited for the the planet to move out of the star's line of sight, and noted that these absorption lines disappeared.

1 out of 1 people found this comment helpful
doubleounknowndude
Article Rating:
1
2
3
4
5
 03/21/08 at 1:40 am

Sorry people i went there and i couldn't resist eating one of their bean burritos(just joking)

This is a interesting topic though im going to keep taps on this planet

1 out of 1 people found this comment helpful
DarkFx

from Winnipeg, Manitoba

Article Rating:
1
2
3
4
5
 03/24/08 at 2:56 am

Anything with energy applied to it, which is everything, can be sensed in whatever spectrum of energy it is applied to, humans can only see the spectrum of shade, and white light - colour, not gamma, infared or cyan, just the wavelengths that existed in out environment, but technology can see what we understand and what we understand we incorperate into technology to increase our understanding. Mabye methane can reflect a certain wavelength of energy but i would say imaduck is probably correct

0 out of 0 people found this comment helpful
jonahan
Article Rating:
1
2
3
4
5
 03/25/08 at 3:21 pm

But why do people assume that if a planet is to hose intelligent life that said intelligent life needs to be like us?

Perhaps there are methane entities there :-p

0 out of 0 people found this comment helpful

PPX: The PopSci Predictions Exchange

RSS Link

Military, Aviation & Space

Ready to bet on the future? Start here!

Subscribe for 2 free issues!

may2008_cover.jpg