Water Vapor Observed in Young Star System

NAI Postdoctoral Fellow Elise Furlan from NAI’s UCLA Team is co-author on a new paper in Nature this week reporting the development of a protoplanetary disk. Using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, observations were made of water vapor within the emerging system’s natal cloud. Lead author Dan Watson of the University of Rochester said, “For the first time, we are seeing water being delivered to the region where planets will most likely form.”

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August 31, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe

Water Vapor Detected on Extrasolar Planet

An international team of researchers including members of NAI’s Virtual Planetary Laboratory Team have, using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, detected the presence of water vapor on the hot jupiter HD 189733b. Published in this week’s Nature, the study’s primary author, Giovanna Tinetti, was a 2003 NAI Postdoctoral Fellow.

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July 11, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe

Spectra of Two Extrasolar Planets

Researchers from NAI’s Carnegie Institution of Washington and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Teams have a new paper in Nature describing the infrared spectrum of exoplanet HD 209458b as obtained by the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope. Scientists from NAI’s University of Arizona and Alumni Virtual Planetary Laboratory Teams are contributing authors on a similar paper in Astrophysical Journal Letters which details the spectrum of exoplanet HD 189733b. Both sets of results show relatively flat spectra, with no significant absorption by water or methane, in contrast with the predictions of most atmospheric models. One spectral feature of...

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February 26, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe

Exoplanet Weather

Researchers from NAI’s UCLA, Carnegie Institution of Washington, and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Teams published this week in Science Express what may well be the first “Interstellar Weather Report.” Focusing on the innermost planet orbiting the star Upsilon Andromeda b, a hot Jupiter, the team used NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope to make measurements indicating that the temperature variation between the planets light and dark sides is 2,550 degrees Fahrenheit.

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October 17, 2006 / Posted by: Shige Abe

NAI Discoveries Ranked Among NASA's Top Science Stories of the Year

Scientists from NAI’s NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Lead Team and NAI’s Carnegie Institution of Washington Lead Team and their collaborators used the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope to capture the first light ever detected from two planets orbiting stars other than the sun. Spitzer picked up the infrared glow from the Jupiter-sized planets. The findings mark the beginning of a new age of planetary science, in which extrasolar planets can be directly measured and compared.

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December 29, 2005 / Posted by: Shige Abe

Planets for Brown Dwarfs?

Scientists from NAI’s University of Arizona Lead Team have used the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope to observe the very beginnings of what might become planets around brown dwarfs. They publish their results this week in Science.

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October 20, 2005 / Posted by: Shige Abe

Spitzer Telecope Data Suggest that Life's Building Blocks are Abundant

Infrared astronomers are discovering that compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) constitute one the largest reservoirs of carbon in space. New observations confirm that PAHs are abundant, even in distant galaxies. Investigator Doug Huggins notes that “This stuff contains the building blocks of life, and now we can say they’re abundant in space. And wherever there’s a planet out there, we know that these things are going to be raining down on it.”

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October 19, 2005 / Posted by: Shige Abe

Spitzer Finds Carbon Compounds in Young Universe

This news story is based on a JPL/NASA press release dated July 28, 2005, which reports that the Spitzer Space Telescope has found the ingredients for life all the way back to a time when the universe was a mere youngster.

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August 1, 2005 / Posted by: Shige Abe