Dec. 1, 2010 (SPACE.com) -- The first-ever analysis of the atmosphere of an alien planet classified as a so-called "super-Earth" has revealed a distant world that is likely covered with either water vapor or a thick haze, scientists announced today.
The exoplanet GJ 1214b, which orbits a star 40 light-years from Earth, offers astronomers a unique chance to study its atmosphere because it passes directly in front of its parent star from Earth's line of sight. That means that once an orbit, the star's light is filtered as it passes through the planet's atmosphere on its way to Earth, taking with it an imprint from the chemicals there. [Illustration of alien planet GJ 1214b]
"We're trying to get at: What's the main component of this planet's atmosphere?" said lead researcher Jacob Bean, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass.
GJ 1214b is called a super-Earth because it is larger than our home planet but smaller than gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn. It was first discovered in 2009 and has been studied ever since.