At least water exists on another planet, apart from the Earth! The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has discovered the exoplanet with the help of the Hubble Telescope. The US space research agency has been searching for the existence of life outside the Earth for a long time. NASA scientists recently found life, i.e. water, on an alien planet during their mission. According to NASA, the exoplanet, called GJ 9827d, which contains water is outside our solar system, but in this galaxy.
In a statement issued in the last week of January 2024, NASA mentioned that the diameter of GJ 9827d is approximately twice of that of the Earth. GJ 9827d is one of the planets previously thought to have water. Meanwhile, scientists claimed that the exoplanet is not habitable, although water could be detected there. They revealed that the newly-found exoplanet demonstrates Venus-like temperatures, reaching 752 degrees Fahrenheit (or 400 degrees Celsius)! Hence, the existence of life is not possible there. Despite the fact that the atmosphere of GJ 9827d is extremely hot, other features of the exoplanet make it possible for water to exist, making it a noteworthy discovery.
Laura Kreidberg, the Director of the Atmospheric Physics of Exoplanets Department at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and a member of the research team, stressed: "The discovery of water on GJ 9827d is exciting because it's the smallest planet yet where we have detected an atmosphere." She told Space.com: "It pushes us closer than ever to characterising truly Earth-like worlds."
NASA scientists further claimed that GJ 9827d orbits the star GJ 982 (positioned approximately 97 light-years away in the constellation of Pisces), just as the Earth orbits the Sun. The Hubble Telescope has clicked 11 images of GJ 9827d over the last three years. After observing those images minutely, scientists came to the conclusion that water could be found on this exoplanet. At the same time, NASA admitted that findings of the Hubble Telescope about the atmosphere of GJ 9827d could not be guaranteed to be 100% accurate at this time, stating that further experiments were in progress.
The Hubble Space Telescope, having a 2.4mt-long mirror, has been in the Earth's orbit since 1990. This telescope, sent into space for the purpose of multi-purpose research, is considered to be an important tool in space research. It captures these images from the space with the help of five main instruments. Many have claimed that water vapour has also been detected on atmospheres of Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and also of some tiny ice-packed unnamed moonlets.
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