Lucky it wasn't the Professor's Smell-o-scope

The first organic molecule, methane, has been discovered on an extrasolar planet. An extrasolar planet is any planet orbiting a star that’s not our own. This is an important finding in the search for life outside our solar system. The scientists who made this discovery also insist that the methane they have found also mean that there is water on this planet, even though this is no friendly place to life as we think of it.

The researchers found the methane on planet HD 189733b, and it is a “hot Jupiter”. “Hot Jupiters” are even larger than our Jupiter and orbit their stars extremely close. This one only takes over two days to go around its star.

The discovery was made with the James Webb Space Telescope, proving that this telescope can detect organic molecules on planets around other stars. It made this discovery when the planet passed in front of the star. The gases in the planet’s atmosphere gave off their unique signatures on the starlight from the star. “Water alone could not explain all the spectral features observed. The additional contribution of methane is necessary to fit the Hubble data,” said co-author Giovanna Tinetti from the University College London and the European Space Agency.

Methane is very prevalent on our own planet and comes from natural gas as well as other places, like livestock. Of course, Tinetti pointed out, “The planet’s atmosphere is far too hot for even the hardiest life to survive - at least the kind of life we know from Earth. It’s highly unlikely that cows could survive here!”

The researchers will continue their work and hope that in the future they will find evidence of these molecules on rockier planets that we find more familiar, ones that are more like Earth. “This observation is proof that spectroscopy can eventually be done on a cooler and potentially habitable Earth-sized planet orbiting a dimmer red dwarf-type star”, said Mark Swain, lead author of a paper in the 20 March issue of Nature.


I think I might try to post once a week on Wednesdays for a bit, unless breaking news occurs. I had a busy week lately, my sister came to visit and it was really great but it wasn't conducive to a great work environment. If any readers have any advice, please let me know. I want to write on a schedule, and news is never on a schedule! Thanks for reading!