Dec 2, 2010 07:36 GMT  ·  By
Rendition of GJ 1214b passing in front of its parent star, some 40 light-years away from Earth
   Rendition of GJ 1214b passing in front of its parent star, some 40 light-years away from Earth

A group of experts announced yesterday, December 1, that they were able to conduct an analysis of the atmosphere surrounding a Super Earth-class exoplanet for the first time ever. The distant body may be covered in either water vapors or a thick haze, they explained.

The Super Earth class is made up of planets that are larger than our own, but which are smaller than the gas giants of our solar system, including Saturn and Jupiter. The new observations target meets all of these criteria.

The body itself lies some 40 light-years away from Earth, and is called GJ 1214b. The reason why astronomers have been able to conduct such studies of its atmosphere is the fact that it passes neatly in front of its parent star as viewed from here.

As such, the light coming in from the star is occulted each time the exoplanet passes in our line-of sight. This causes anomalies in the brightness and luminosity readings, which can then be interpreted.

Bu the most important thing to know here is that the starlight is also filtered by the atmosphere around GJ 1214b, allowing researchers to conduct spectrograph analyses of what its chemical composition might be.

“We're trying to get at: What's the main component of this planet's atmosphere?” explains the goal of the research Jacob Bean, the lead scientist on the investigation.

The expert holds an appointment as an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He adds that GJ 1214b was first discovered in 2009.

According to Bean, the exoplanet can be likened to Neptune. He says that this is the solar system body that bears the closest resemblance to the distant body. Data indicate that the exoplanet is about 6.5 times heavier than the Earth.

Its radius is also 2.5 times that of our planet. It remains one of the few planets discovered to belong to this particular class, and astronomers are interested in it because some Super Earths may be capable of supporting life.

Only last month, experts announced the discovery of the 500th exoplanet, and more are soon to follow. The Kepler space telescope already has about 700 candidates, from which more than two thirds will most likely be confirmed.

In the new studies, the team determined that GJ 1214b's atmosphere has a flat, featureless signature, which is not at all what the researchers expected.

The European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile was used for the research. The CfA team relied heavily on the FORS instrument, which can analyze spectrograph data.

Details of the new research will appear in the December 2 issue of the esteemed journal Nature.

“That might seem a bit boring, but that's actually a very powerful constraint,” Bean told Space about the planet's lack of atmospheric features.

“Super-Earths are really at the frontier of exoplanet research right now. We've gotten to the point where we can finally discover and characterize these planets. I think over the next few years there's really going to be an explosion of work done in this area,” the expert adds.