Sunday, March 16, 2008

Organic molecules detected on extra solar planet

This is another step forward in the detection of life on other planets (something which I wrote in detail about here). However, the news is that a planet which is too hot to support life has methane in its atmosphere. I presume that this has been found by looking at the absorption lines as the light from the star travels through the atmosphere of the planet. NASA will be holding a press conference on Wednesday to talk about these results. Note that the exciting point is that we now have the technology to do this, not particularly that this finding is in itself that surprising.

(TMT who shared this item)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fly me to the moon "not on your nelly" I will stick to the beaches in Portugal. I am not ready for meeting the unknown just yet.

Unknown said...

Don't knock it till you've tried it! Though the beaches of Portugal do sounds tempting.