Water vapor clouds detected tentatively seven light years from the Earth The original article written by Ken Croswell on Aug 25, 2014 on News Science. Astronomers have found signs of water ice clouds on object 7.3 light years from the Earth. The distance is less than twice distance of the nearest star system to sun, Alpha Centauri. If confirmed it is the first sighting of water beyond our solar system. The cloud shroud a Jupiter size and three to ten times massive object called brown dwarf. A brown dwarf is a failed star, had so little mass that it can sustain Nuclear reactions. So after it birth it fades and cools. This brown dwarf if the named WISE J0855-0714 discovered by Kevine Lunhman,an astronomer by using images from NASAs WISE infrared space telescope. The brown dwarf is the coldest known it is temp. Is slightly below the freezing point of water so it is colder than Earths mean temp. But warmer than Jupiters.The body is solitary, which means it has no sun whose glare interfere with our view of it plus it is near by the fourth closest system next to Alpha Centauri, Barnards Stars and Lunhman 16. This is the first evidence of water clouds of the solar system, observers only can see water clouds with in the solar system on Earth and Mars. While on the giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn the ammonia clouds cover the water clouds , on the planets like Neptune and Uranus the atmosphere block the view of water clouds. Jonathan Frotney says one of the things things we dont know is how mom on partly cloudiness is. Planets like Venus are totally cloudy while Earth is partly cloudy. The other researcher Jacqueline Farhety says brown dwarf is partly cloudy. Verifying the discovery will require more spectra and further study. What a great news even though it is tentative. Thank you Ken Croswell and News Science.
Posted on: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 14:04:20 +0000
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