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Hubble Space Telescope Discovers Smallest Known Planet with Water Outside Solar System

The Hubble Space Telescope has observed the smallest known planet outside the solar system that contains water in its atmosphere, according to what the American space agencies (NASA) and the European space agencies announced Thursday.

“Detecting water on such a small planet is a historic discovery,” said co-director of the research, Laura Kreidberg, from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany. “It brings us closer than ever to worlds that are truly Earth-like.”

The planet GJ 9827d, on which water was observed, and whose diameter is about twice the diameter of Earth, is located in the constellation Pisces, 97 light-years away, or more than 900 thousand billion kilometers, according to a statement issued by NASA and the European Space Agency.

Officials of the two agencies believed that this planet is similar to either a “mini-Neptune” with an atmosphere rich in hydrogen and full of water, or a warmer version of Jupiter’s moon Europa, which contains under its crust twice the amount of water that exists under the Earth’s crust.

“GJ 9827d may be composed equally of water and rock,” noted Björn Beinecke of the University of Montreal, who co-directed the research. He believed there was “a lot of water vapor on the small rocky masses.”

He added, “Before today, we were not able to directly monitor the atmosphere of such a small planet, and we are gradually achieving this.”

For three years, Hubble succeeded in analyzing the wavelength of colors in the atmosphere of the planet GJ 9827d, when light from the star it orbits was filtering through its atmosphere, and was able to detect the presence of water molecules.

Although this planet has an atmosphere rich in water, its temperature of 425 degrees Celsius makes it uninhabitable for life.

However, this discovery paves the way for further studies on GJ 9827d and similar planets, especially with the James Webb space telescope, which can use its high-resolution infrared images to search for other atmospheric molecules such as carbon dioxide and methane.

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