Tech News Update

Two independent groups of astronomers have detected the atmospheres of planets around other stars from ground-based telescopes.Previous observations of the atmospheres of extrasolar planets had been made almost entirely by space-based instruments, such as the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, although another team last year detected the signature of sodium in an exoplanet atmosphere.To date, astronomers have detected several key gases in planets’ atmospheres, including:Carbon dioxide – a potential sign of life, though the planet where the gas was observed was too hot to be habitable.Water vapor – a key molecule required to support life as we know it.Silicates (combinations of silicon and oxygen) – components of most rocks on Earth, likely in the form of clouds of dust grains on massive exoplanets.Sodium – detected in 2001, it marked the first space-based observation of an exoplanet atmosphere.Ground-based detection is becoming a priority as Hubble ages and Spitzer is set to run out of cryogens, which keep its instruments cool enough to detect infrared radiation (heat), limiting its abilities.”Others have tried to detect planetary atmospheres from Earth, but to no avail,” said the co-author of one of the new studies, Mercedes López-Morales of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C.