Astronomers unveil atmospheres of far-away planets

The discovery and characterisation of a planet with an Earth-like atmosphere is a step closer thanks to a new observation technique, developed by astronomers at NASA and UCL, using small ground-based telescopes. Published today in Nature , astronomers have identified organic molecules in the atmosphere of a Jupiter-sized planet nearly 63 light years away. Rather than using a high performance space telescope, like Hubble, they have made the breakthrough using a relatively small 30-year-old telescope in Hawaii. The surprising new finding was made using NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea, Hawaii ' a 3-metre diameter telescope that ranks just 40th among ground-based instruments. The new technique promises to speed up the work of studying planet atmospheres by enabling many other ground-based telescopes to focus on known exoplanets ? planets that orbit stars beyond our solar system. 'The final goal is to observe the atmosphere of a planet with the capability to support life. We're not there yet, but this technique will make it much easier and faster to characterise exoplanet atmospheres,? said Dr Giovanna Tinetti, co-author of the study at UCL Physics and Astronomy.