Water detected on 'near by' exo-planet

From http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140225101737.htm

Water detected in a planet outside our solar system

Date:

February 25, 2014

Source:

Penn State

Summary:

Water has been detected in the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system with a new technique that could help researchers to learn how many planets with water, like Earth, exist throughout the universe. The team of scientists that made the discovery detected the water in the atmosphere of a planet as massive as Jupiter that is orbiting the nearby star tau Boötis.

Chad Bender, a research associate in the Penn State Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics and a co-author of the paper, said "Planets like tau Boötes b, which are as massive as Jupiter but much hotter, do not exist in our solar system. Our detection of water in the atmosphere of tau Boötes b is important because it helps us understand how these exotic hot-Jupiter planets form and evolve. It also demonstrates the effectiveness of our new technique, which detects the infrared radiation in the atmospheres of these planets."
Scientists previously had detected water vapor on a handful of other planets, using a technique that works only if a planet has an orbit that passes it in front of its star, when viewed from Earth. Scientists also were able to use another imaging technique that works only if the planet is sufficiently far away from its host star. However, significant portions of the population of extrasolar planets do not fit either of these criteria, and there had not been a way to discover information about the atmospheres of these planets

An artist's conception of a hot-Jupiter extrasolar planet orbiting a star similar to tau Boötes.  
Credit: David Aguilar, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics