Astronomer detects atmosphere of extra-solar planet

University of Texas at Austin astronomer and Hubble Fellow Seth Redfield has used the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) at McDonald Observatory to make the first ground-based detection of the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system.

It's a remarkable pioneering discovery," said McDonald Observatory Director David L. Lambert.

The work is an incremental step in finding life in the universe, falling between the initial detections of planets around other stars (known as "extra-solar planets" or "exoplanets"), and the anticipated discovery of planets similar to Earth.

"What we all want to find is a planet with an Earth-like atmosphere," Redfield said.

The planet Redfield studied orbits HD189733, a star about 63 light-years away in the constellation Vulpecula, the little fox. But it's not like Earth. The planet is 20 percent more massive than Jupiter, and orbits very close to its parent star (more than 10 times closer than Mercury is to our Sun).