Scientists have reported the first conclusive discovery of water vapor in
the atmosphere of an exoplanet, or a planet beyond our solar system.
This artist's impression shows a gas-giant exoplanet transiting across the
face of its star. Infrared analysis by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope of
this type of system provided the breakthrough.
The planet, HD 189733b, lies 63 light-years away in the constellation
Vulpecula. It was discovered in 2005 as it transited its parent star,
dimming the star's light by some three percent.
JPL manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer
Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. JPL is
a division of Caltech. Spitzer's infrared array camera was built by NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The instrument's principal
investigator is Giovanni Fazio of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass.
For more information about Spitzer, visit http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/spitzer and
http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer.
