Oxygen seen swirling around far off planet
Oxygen and carbon have been detected in the atmosphere of a planet beyond our solar system for the first time, by an international team of scientists.
Astronomers led by Dr Alfred Vidal-Madjar of the Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris in France used the Hubble Space Telescope to view oxygen and carbon swirling surrounding the Jupiter-like planet nicknamed Osiris.
The gases surrounded the planet, which also goes by the name HD 209458b, in an extended ellipsoidal envelope, the shape of a rugby-ball.
The atoms were swept up from the lower atmosphere with the flow of the escaping atmospheric atomic hydrogen, like dust in a supersonic whirlwind. This created an atmospheric 'blow off' travelling at near-sonic speed.
The researchers will publish their findings in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
They detected elements in the atmosphere of the extrasolar planet, which is in the Pegasus constellation, because its orbit took it in front of its sun HD 209458, from our perspective.
They only detected oxygen and carbon in trace amounts, with most of the atmosphere made up of hydrogen.
The researchers were quick to say that the oxygen existed naturally and was not evidence that the planet supported life.
Team member Dr Gilda Ballester, from the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Observatory, said the discovery of oxygen and carbon in itself was not so surprising as these were common elements in the lower atmosphere of Jupiter-like planets, bound up in molecules such as methane and water.
But the discovery may confirm a theory about the formation of an Earth-sized, rocky planet.
Did rocky planets form this way?
Although planet HD 209458b is the size of Jupiter, the planet, is closer to its star than Mercury is to our Sun.
Scientists suspect that the planet formed much further out and had spiralled in towards the star, evaporating off its hydrogen, oxygen and carbon atmosphere as it zoomed in.
The team speculated that early Venus, Earth and perhaps Mars lost their atmospheres the same way.
Australian researcher Dr Chris Tinney, Head of Astronomy at the Anglo-Australian Observatory, said the lack of the Hubble Space Telescope would make it more difficult to repeat this sort of experiment.
"Once the Hubble Space Telescope dies as it's likely to do now, within three or four years, there'll be no other facility available to do these types of observations," Tinney told ABC Science Online.
NASA announced earlier this year that the lifespan of the Hubble Space Telescope would be shortened due to the cancellation of servicing missions. But NASA has appointed Harold Gehman, who led the inquiry into the Columbia shuttle disaster, to review its decision
NASA's Australian representative Neal Newman said the recent discovery wouldn't influence the space organisation's plans for the Hubble Space Telescope.
"In my opinion it is very unlikely that any scientific discovery would affect the NASA decision. This is nothing to do with Hubble's scientific return; nobody argues that that has been incredible," he told ABC Science Online.
"It is everything to do with the flight requirements for servicing Hubble. NASA doesn't want to put the shuttle in a position where there is no retreat to the International Space Station. And Hubble doesn't lie in the space station's orbit."
Meanwhile, a grassroots campaign to save the Hubble Space Telescope is gathering support.
An electronic petition at www.savethehubble.org has received more than 13,000 signatures.