Although scientists have long questioned the reason behind the lack of water that seems to occur on several hot, Jupiter-sized exoplanets, a team of University of Exeter researchers have come up with an answer, thanks to data gained from NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes. The results could help scientists better understand planetary atmospheres as well as the assembly of planets in our galaxy.
"Our results suggest it's simply clouds hiding the water from prying eyes, and therefore rule out dry hot Jupiters," Jonathan Fortney, co-author of the paper, told FOX News. "The alternative theory to this is that planets form in an environment deprived of water, but this would require us to completely rethink our current theories of how planets are born."
Almost 2,000 planets are confirmed to be orbiting stars, and NASA claims that a portion of them are gaseous planets that possess many similar characteristics to Jupiter. However, due to their orbits remaining close to their stars, they are extremely hot and difficult to gather data on. Of the planets studied by Hubble so far, many were found to hold less water than predicted by atmospheric models.
"The atmosphere leaves its unique fingerprint on the starlight, which we can study when the light reaches us," Hannah Wakeford, co-author of the study, said in a press release.
The team found a correlation between cloudy atmospheres and decreased water detection, which allowed them to better understand the range of atmospheres on these planets.
"Now that we are able to see a lot of planets, 10 planets and see the full broad spectrum, we are able to see planets that have clear atmospheres and a lot of water and those that show little features are the cloudy ones," said David Sing, lead author of the paper.
The study is published in the Dec. 14 issue of Nature.
