Researchers Confirm Exoplanet Has Clouds Using Hubble Telescope 62
Exoplanet GJ 1214 b was discovered in 2009 by the MEarth project. Researchers now have strong evidence that it has an atmosphere. "[A] team of astronomers led by UChicago's Laura Kreidberg and Jacob Bean have detected clear evidence of clouds in the atmosphere of GJ 1214b from data collected with the Hubble Space Telescope. The Hubble observations used 96 hours of telescope time spread over 11 months. This was the largest Hubble program ever devoted to studying a single exoplanet. ... The first spectra, which were obtained by Bean in 2010 using a ground-based telescope, suggested that the planet's atmosphere either was predominantly water vapor or hydrogen-dominated with high-altitude clouds. ... More precise Hubble observations made in 2012 and 2013 allowed the team to distinguish between these two scenarios. ... The best explanation for the new data is that there are high-altitude clouds in the atmosphere of the planet, though their composition is unknown. Models of super-Earth atmospheres predict clouds could be made out of potassium chloride or zinc sulfide at the scorching temperatures of 450 degrees Fahrenheit found on GJ 1214b."
I wished they would stop calling it super earth (Score:4, Interesting)
As soon as it is obvious that a so called super earth is far to close to its sun to be inhabitable they should stop calling it like that.
Re:We're exploring space just fine (Score:5, Interesting)
from right here in our shirtsleeves sitting at a computer desk. I wonder why going up 0.1 Earth radii to stay within the Earth's atmosphere is "exploring space"...
Well, sure, if you want to be pedantic you could call quantum physics space-time exploration too, all of science and reality for that matter. However, note that despite the (non-avian) Dinosaurs extensive duration of "exploring space" they were extinguished by a single rock. So, while it is wondrous to peer out from deep in your basements through vast windows (and unixes) upon the Universe at large, it means fuck-all ultimately if you can't do anything about the state of things physically. The universe is a dangerous place. Entropy is out to kill us. Earth's inhabitants are living on borrowed time. It's not just rocks, but solar flares, gamma ray bursts, super volcanoes, etc. Earth is 500,000 year over-due for a magnetic pole flip.
Window shopping for planets is fine, but the tech to get there will include the tech to survive outside the magnetosphere on the Moon, Mars, among the Asteroid Belt, etc. It's been over four decades since humans were outside the magnetosphere. That's irresponsible for any sentient race capable of even a modicum of extra-planetary space exploration. If we found out tomorrow that a big unstoppable rock would hit Earth this year your extinction would be your fault. Don't think that's possible? Eris, a dwarf planet 27% more massive than Pluto, wasn't discovered until 2005! And it comes in closer than Pluto's orbit too. Pluto's not a planet because if it were they'd have to admit there was ANOTHER PLANET unnoticed right in your back yard). Humans are basically blind to space, having extreme tunnel vision.
Trillions are wasted in pointless wars over privatization of industry, and the machines of war burned to make room for more such war spending, meanwhile not instead profiting far more lucratively from space exploration? The scaremongers haven't figured out that our own universe is a far more dangerous threat, and that actually saving the Earth is far more grandiose, expensive, and thus a more profitable venture that war? If fighting extinction through self sustaining off-world colonies isn't your #1 priority, then you're obviously not self aware enough to be deemed sentient. Thus, solves the Fermi Paradox: We gave you a warp drive, you'd stay on your wet rock and turn it into a bomb.
Re:houston... (Score:4, Interesting)
You might be surprised what could happen as far as motivation to build new technologies if the general public saw a real picture of some distant world with bluish waters, brown and green continents and pearly white clouds.