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Carbon dioxide found on distant planet

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-12-11 07:44

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has discovered both carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide in the atmosphere of a distant planet, in a key step for finding extra-terrestrial life, the space agency said on Tuesday.

Detecting organic compounds that can be a by-product of life processes on an Earth-like body could one day "provide the first evidence of life beyond our planet," NASA said in a statement.

The discovery was made on a Jupiter-size planet, 63 light years away from Earth that is too hot for life, and is all gas and liquid.

"We're not closer to discovering life on this particular planet," admitted Ray Villard of the Space Telescope Science Institute. "But it has the mix of chemistry that on the right planet could be a biotracer for life," he said.

Scientists have studied the planet intensively, finding the organic molecule methane as well as water vapor, Villard added.

The carbon dioxide and monoxide were detected by Mark Swain, a research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, using Hubble to study infrared light emitted from the planet.

"The carbon dioxide is the main reason for the excitement because, under the right circumstances, it could have a connection to biological activity as it does on Earth," Swain said.

"The very fact we are able to detect it and estimate its abundance is significant for the long-term effort of characterizing planets to find out what they are made of and if they could be possible hosts for life."