Description
Sodium in atmosphere of exoplanet HD 209458.jpg
English:
Sodium in the atmosphere of the Hot Jupiter exoplanet of HD 209458, a 7th magnitude star, 150 light years away in the constellation Pegasus. Sodium filters out light from its parent star, and is detected using by analyzing absorption spectrum. Image Credit: A. Field, STScI
Astronomers using the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope have made the first direct detection and chemical analysis of the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system. Their unique observations show it is possible to measure the chemical makeup of extra-solar planetary atmospheres -- and potentially to search for chemical markers of life far beyond Earth.
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The NASA website hosts a large number of images from the
Soviet
/
Russian space agency
, and other non-American space agencies. These are
not necessarily
in the public domain.
The
SOHO (ESA & NASA)
joint project implies that all materials created by its probe are copyrighted and require permission for commercial non-educational use.
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