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from the still-less-vapor-than-the-phantom-console dept.
kef writes:
"Water vapor has been detected in the atmosphere of exo-planet Tau Boötis b, which was was discovered in 1996 and is just 51 light years away. From the article:
To analyze the atmosphere surrounding Tau Boötis b, scientists looked at its faint glow. Different types of molecules emit different wavelengths of light, resulting in signatures known as spectra that reveal their chemical identity.
Scientists have used spectrographic analyses to find water signatures on other alien planets before, but only when those worlds passed in front of their parent stars. Tau Boötis b does not transit in front of its parent star from our viewpoint on Earth, but Lockwood and colleagues were able to tease out the weak light emitted by the planet using the Near Infrared Echelle Spectrograph (NIRSPEC) at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii."
[ED note: The findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal (paywalled), but they are also freely viewable on Arxiv.]
(Score: 4, Informative) by mcgrew on Saturday March 01 2014, @09:59PM
Where have you been? I've been partying near the constellation Aquila since 1995. [mentalfloss.com]
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 02 2014, @01:46AM
Forget asteroid mining!!!