Methane Discovered On Another Planet !!

Whoooo Hoooo!! Hubble bubble toil and trouble !!! It seems the Hubble Telescope has picked up methane on another planet outside our solar system. NASA are set to make a big announcement about that on 19th March. The pkanet itself is too hot to support life as we know it, but i guess there has to be SOMETHING on the planet producing methane !!!

www.nasa.gov..." target="_blank" class="postlink" rel="nofollow">Hubble Discovery



Looks like Cosmic Journey is in full motion...





[edit on 15/3/08 by Wirral Bagpuss]

[edit on 15/3/08 by Wirral Bagpuss]

The link doesn't seem to work..


Methane you say.... It could be cows

why are they waiting until the 19th of march?

Is there any images?

ok, so i needs a quick methane 101 class,
according to wiki it's a natural gas, but i quickly read it,
can it not happen naturaly on a planet?

and yes the link is not working,
im gunna google it

sounds like a galactic waste disposal planet is this where the more advanced races take there rubish/trash?

possible IMO

space.newscientist.com...

Originally posted by Wirral Bagpuss
The pkanet itself is too hot to support life as we know it, but i guess there has to be SOMETHING on the planet producing methane !!!

Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus, Titan, etc., all have methane in their atmospheres. Nothing to get too excited about.

now im curious, was this planet always this close to the its sun, or did the star get bigger an engulf other planets that were near it, mean that this meth planet had life on it but the star got too big an now the methane is just boilin off?

I dunno, could still have life inside it maybe.......

i like the galactic trash dump idea..... lol

Metane is also found on other planets and moons in our solar system eg. Saturn's moon Titan, Neptune, and Uranus.

What's the big deal? Sure, it could indicate life... but probably not!


edit: Nohup posted while I was typing (don't you just hate when that happens!?)

[edit on 15-3-2008 by C.H.U.D.]

Originally posted by Trance Optic
now im curious, was this planet always this close to the its sun, or did the star get bigger an engulf other planets that were near it, mean that this meth planet had life on it but the star got too big an now the methane is just boilin off?

I dunno, could still have life inside it maybe.......

i like the galactic trash dump idea..... lol

I DOUBT IT! COULD YOU LIVE INSIDE YOUR KITCHEN WITH THE GAS COOKER ON 24/7?


its a galactic dump planet/3world obviously...


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[edit on 15-3-2008 by Jbird]

Originally posted by Wirral Bagpuss
The pkanet itself is too hot to support life as we know it, but i guess there has to be SOMETHING on the planet producing methane !!!

Yeah, CO2 and hydrogen.

Linky

Probably too hot though. Anyway, NASA will dream up some guesstimate theory, dont you worry.


[edit on 15-3-2008 by Copernicus]

i think this is the reason they are so fasinated
and i quote - from the article i posted above

"Initially, that is surprising," says Sara Seager of MIT in Cambridge, US, who was not involved in the study. Because HD 189733b orbits very close to its parent star – just 10% of Mercury's distance from the Sun, it is very hot, with atmospheric temperatures of about 700° Celsius. "When the temperature is this high, the dominant form of carbon should be carbon monoxide, not methane," says Seager.

thats why its interesting i think



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[edit on 15-3-2008 by Jbird]

Originally posted by french_berg
ok, so i needs a quick methane 101 class,
according to wiki it's a natural gas, but i quickly read it,
can it not happen naturaly on a planet?

lol, just for future reference french_berg, wiki is not recognized universally as a standard for definitions or finding information. Actually many schools, colleges, universities and people in general will not give you credit for information that's off of wiki and might even laugh in your face. I found out the hard way.

Just helping a friend out and for those who don't know :-)

Originally posted by Nohup
Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus, Titan, etc., all have methane in their atmospheres. Nothing to get too excited about.

In fact, doesn't Titan have entire oceans of liquid methane (or at least lakes and/or seas made of methane).

[edit on 3/16/2008 by Soylent Green Is People]

yep titan has lakes of methane. Also if its hubble finding this planet it must be massive bigger than jupiter.

more importantly this shows the direction we are heading. Probing the chemical composition of exo-planets. Soon we will be analysing earth size planets which will be very exciting.

I would like to ask a question however:

The article states "organic methane" not just methane.

Is there a difference between the two, such as chemical methane vs organis methane vs volcanic methane...or do we just say methane as a short version for organic methane?

Thanks for any replies.

Apologies fro the broken link, my PC was playing up the other night and i gave up !!! Anyhow back to the methane. I was wondering what it meant tby the use of organic methane as opposed to methane. Organic implies something living surely??? Maybe there are cows on the new planet after all !!

I can't believe there are no Uranus jokes yet.

Sorry, couldn't help it.

organic methane is the same as methane. Its an organic chemical otherwise known as hydrocarbons. Looks like they just used the word "organic" to jazz it up.

the universe is full of hydrocarbons these are simple chemicals and are a simpler form of carbons which all life on earth is based. A mix of Hydrocarbons are thought to be the "primordial soup" from which life arose. So its good we find lots of them in space & around stars/planets

[edit on 17-3-2008 by yeti101]