When it come to planetary scientific discipline , astronomers are always looking for body of water . Even in utmost worlds , see water tells us a lot about what ’s going on . In fact , piss has been detected on several " hot Jupiters " , tumescent colossus orbit very nigh to their stars , but not all of them .
scientist at NASA ’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory need to empathize why this was the case , and also see what the different eccentric of hot Jupiters have in uncouth . Interestingly , they found that cloud or haze might be check water from being detected on man that seem otherwise relatively dry .
" The motivation of our study was to see what these planet would be like if they were grouped together , and to see whether they share any atmospherical properties , " order Aishwarya Iyer , lead author and master ’s degree candidate at California State University , Northridge , in astatement .
In the field , put out by theAstrophysical Journal , the investigator used NASA ’s Hubble Space Telescope to watch 19 raging Jupiters . They profile the light coming from the planets , and then compared those readings to a model of swarm - costless ambience as well as models with different eccentric of clouds .
" Clouds or haze seem to be on almost every major planet we read , " said Iyer . " You have to be careful to take clouds or haze into explanation , or else you could underestimate the amount of water in an exoplanet ’s standard pressure by a factor of two . "
Hot Jupiters can reach a temperature of over 1,100 ° C ( 2,000 ° F ) , so the cloud are likely not made of water themselves . The investigator determined that on medium one-half of a planet ’s atmosphere is blocked by either fog or clouds .
Although aprevious studysuggested that cloud were obliterate the water on hot Jupiters , this new enquiry is the first one to quantify how much an atmosphere is shielded . read speck and the atmosphere is rudimentary to finding out the chronicle of these satellite .
" Did these planets form in their current stead or transmigrate toward their host stars from farther out ? " said Robert Zellem , Colorado - author of the study , in the statement . " Understanding the abundances of molecules such as pee helps us do those question . "
This work could be very useful when theJames Webb Space Telescopecomes online in 2018 . One of the science goal of the new distance observatory is to meditate exoplanets flat , so targets with few cloud could get preferential discussion .
