Auburn physicist comments on water vapor found on exoplanet
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A team of scientists with NASA recently discovered water vapor on a distant planet, K2-18b. Auburn Associate Professor of Physics Dennis Bodewits commented on the recent discovery and what it means for space discovery going forward. Bodewits’ primary research focuses on the activity and evolution of comets and asteroids.
Bodewits was awarded two days of use on the Hubble Telescope in December 2018 to study the Comet 46P/Wirtanen. He was researching what ices make up the comet and how chemical processes change the gas around it.
What does the water vapor mean for future research for NASA?
Detecting atmospheres around exoplanets is very difficult. First, our own atmosphere blocks our view. Second, the light coming from the Star overpowers the planet’s signal. This team found a combination of a relatively large planet and small star using the Hubble Space Telescope. These observations pave the way for NASA's even more powerful James Web Telescope, to be launched in March 2021.
What can scientists learn from the water vapor on this distant planet?
On Earth, water is a critical liquid that makes chemical processes needed for life possible. The presence of water on planets could imply that exoplanets may support life. Scientists call this ‘habitable’.
What does water vapor on that planet mean for the rest of the solar system?
Water is everywhere in our solar system. It is found on the moon, in small bodies such as comets and asteroids, even in remote places such as Europa and Enceladus. We don’t know how Earth got its water, competing theories suggest that maybe comets or asteroids delivered it. Finding water on exoplanets may help us solve this mystery.
Findings also suggest the presence of hydrogen and helium in the planet’s atmosphere – what would that mean? What can we learn from that?
The more details we have regarding the atmosphere, the better we can understand the conditions on the planet. The atmosphere of Venus for example has much more greenhouse gases than Earth’s atmosphere.
Dennis Bodewits
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