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Organic molecules have been found for the first time on an exoplanet. The planet is way too hot to support any life as we know it.
Organic molecules have been found for the first time on an exoplanet. The planet is way too hot to support any life as we know it.
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Astronomers Mark Swain and Gautam Vasisht of Caltech in Pasadena, US, and Giovanna Tinetti of University College London, UK, used the Hubble Space Telescope to observe the giant planet HD 189733b, which is slightly more massive than Jupiter and lies 63 light years from Earth. Because the planet crosses the face of its parent star as seen from Earth, some starlight is periodically filtered through the planet's atmosphere, where different chemicals absorb particular wavelengths. The observations confirm an earlier tentative detection of water vapour and reveal the presence of methane gas.