planets

Wednesday Science Blogging: Water Found Outside Solar System

Totally kewl.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Evidence of water has been detected for the first time in a planet outside our solar system, an astronomer said on Tuesday, a tantalizing find for scientists eager to know whether life exists beyond Earth.
Travis Barman, an astronomer at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, said water vapor has been found in the atmosphere of a large, Jupiter-like gaseous planet located 150 light years from Earth in the constellation Pegasus. The planet is known as HD 209458b.

The planet’s name doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, so I propose we rename it Felicia’s World, after my childhood imaginary friend. We used to play telepathic underwater Amazons with my Princess Leia and Malibu Barbie dolls, and dream of founding our own colony of all-Amazons on some distant planet one day, where there were no boys.  Read more