Water detected on distant planet

Water has been detected for the first time, on a planet outside of our solar system. The planet is known as HD 209458b, and is 150 light-years away from earth, located in the constellation of Pegasus. It has been thought for a long while that water vapour exists on planets other than ours, especially in this constellation, but for a long period of time scientists were unable to detect this vapour because of the planets closeness to their parent stars. A variety of astronomers were involved in making the detection, including Travis Barnam from Flagstaff, AZ, and Heather Knutson from Harvard University. The detected planet is a gas giant, like Jupiter and Neptune in our solar system, so it is unlikely that it has any kind of life on it. The planet also has nearly no atmosphere, as it lies so closely to its parent star.

This topic is one of the first ones all year that I have found to be truly interesting, and I was excited to read it. The idea of life on a planet other than ours is such a complex and unknown concept, and research being put into the topic is something that I think is important. This story is a massive breakthrough. As water and/or water vapour has never been discovered on a planet outside of our solar system, this really does have an unmistakable significance. The aspect of space discovery that I find extremely interesting is the fact that there is so much outside of the world that we live in, outside of the earth that we live on. The universe could be a completely endless entity, there could be trillions of worlds outside of ours that operate in the same way, or are far superior to ours in terms of technology, or politics. The opposite of this could also be true, there could be absolutely nothing else out there that represents even a semblance of our world, these questions simply can't be answered right now. I know I've diverged from the original topic, but the concept of space and the universe is highly interesting to me, so I usually ramble when I get onto the topic.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6544257.stm