A scorching-hot gas planet beyond our solar system is steaming up with water vapor, according to new observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.
The planet, called HD 189733b, swelters as it zips closely around its star every two days or so. Astronomers had predicted that planets of this class, termed "hot Jupiters," would contain water vapor in their atmospheres. Yet finding solid evidence for this has been slippery. These latest data are the most convincing yet that hot Jupiters are "wet."
Thursday, July 12, 2007
NASA spies water vapor on hellish alien planet
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
"wet" hot Jupiters...the universe is getting sexier by the minute!
(sorry i'm in an exceedingly silly mood today)
BIG SCHMUCKING DEAL...
Scientists are just as guilty of hype as everyone else. WATER DISCOVERED ON EXTRASOLAR PLANET!!! R-E-E-E-AD A-A-A-ALL ABOUT IT!!! Oh. Another so-called "hot Jupiter." Oh. Superheated steam. Big Whoop.
Now if it were a wet, hot VENUS.... (Dear God, I'm getting worse than mr e....)
--WMB as Anon
The new, hot and deliciously wet and slippery extrasolar planet, emanating its billions of years of longing through the silent void via mournful, oscillating gravity waves and subtle manipulation of its salacious magnetosphere suddenly became aware of an older but wiser, though no less urgent vibration from a delectable wandering brown dwarf star.
As the electromagnetic and radio emissions of each reverberated through the cold darkness of interstellar space, a slowly mounting pulse of quark activity began to rise, as each of the astronomical bodies began to signal, back and forth, more and more rapidly and forcefully, triggering exotic gamma ray bursts and a driving, sweltering raging intensity of sub-atomic nano-level particles at near light speed, while an orgasmic spectrum of both visible and dark energies burst forward and out, and the exponential movement and expansion of rugose tendrils of high-potency solar flares over an immense scale of closing distance triggered a series of rapid, powerful electrical and radioactive dimensional cascading superluminal collapse until the explosive, turgid, and inevitable release of... E= mc2xgoogle over the 11th unwrapped dimensional wormhole?!?!! ..aaaarrrgghhhh/@%***bing boing big BANG!
Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhh.........(followed by a big beautiful bouncing baby universe 9 milliseconds later!)
[Well, not to get _too_ graphic, but now you know what can sometimes trigger supernovas, black holes, and other steamingly silly cosmological phenomena...] 8*)
Post a Comment