There's water out there.

Astronomers discover water on a distant planet.

Water; the universal solvent, the most prolific substance on our planet, $3 bucks a bottle. It may be pretty common here on Earth, but scientists has long searched for other planets that contain water. The moon has some on its poles, and so does Mars. In fact, water is pretty common in our solar system. But to discover a distant planet with water, that's something special.

The distant planet HD 209458b, (can't we give it some cool name like Infiniton 1, home to the Krelborne Empire) a Jupiter like gas giant, lives about 150 light years from Earth in the constellation Pegasus. Originally, some scientists had researched this planet and concluded that there was no water present, publishing their findings in the 'Astrophysics Journal'. But because HD 209458b, sorry, Infiniton 1, passes very closely to its parent sun, the detection of water in its atmosphere became difficult. The exoplanet in question has an orbit of about 3 and 1/2 days, so we can get a good look at it twice a week. But it took another scientist to bring about the determination that there may be water on this planet.

Astronomer Travis Barman, from the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, US, and Harvard University astronomer Heather Knutson both contributed to the finding.

Baman proposed that planets with a water rich atmosphere will undergo light wavelength absorption. When a planet passes in front of its parent star, different spectrum's of light from that star will be absorbed by the planets atmosphere. In the case of a water rich atmosphere, a planet will appear to look larger in the infrared spectrum due to the absorption and diffusion of infrared light by water. A planet with no water in its atmosphere will remain the same size throughout the spectrum. It's kinda like the lens effect that a droplet of water can have, except on a planetary scale. Knutson then used data from the Hubble Space Telescope along with Barman's theoretical models to help support the presence of water on HD 209458b.

"I'm very confident," said Dr Barman, "it's definitely good news because water has been predicted to be present in the atmosphere of this planet and many of the other ones for some time." It could also hint towards the presence of water on other planets in our galaxy. He did add though that this particular Jupiter-like gas giant is quite unlikely to harbor any type of life.

"Certainly this is part of that puzzle - understanding the distribution of water in other solar systems is important for understanding whether or not conditions for life are possible," Barman further explained.

But as we speak (or while you read), new telescope technologies are being developed that will help to analyze the faint light from distant planets for the tell-tale markers of life as we know it. The presence of water is an obvious first step, with oxygen and methane being strong indicators to the presence of extraterrestrial life. Hey, even if it's some space algae growing on a rock 100 light years away, that's still something to get excited about. Future telescopes could even look for more complex molecules such as chlorophyll (the chemical that allows plants to conduct photosynthesis).

Unfortunately, HD209458b belongs to a class of planets known as 'hot Jupiters'. Due to its close orbiting proximity to the parent star, the planet's outer atmosphere is expanded and heated to the point where it starts to escape the planet's own gravity. Furthermore, the hydrogen in the upper atmosphere boils off due that close proximity to the parent star.

Sounds like a nice place, but I don't think I'd want to live there.