Astronomers have detected water vapour in the atmosphere of Neptune-sized exoplanet. Previously, it had only been possible to measure the atmospheric composition in large, Jupiter-sized exoplanets.
Using a technique called transmission spectroscopy with which they analysed the light spectrum coming from the exoplanet, they’ve detected water molecules in the atmosphere of HAT-P-11b, an exoplanet with a radius about 4 times bigger than the Earth. This is the smallest exoplanet to date on which researchers have been able to detect water.
Original research paper published in the journal Nature on September 24, 2014.
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