The mass of a very young exoplanet has been revealed for the first time using data from ESA’s star mapping spacecraft Gaia and its predecessor, the quarter-century retired Hipparcos satellite.

Astronomers Ignas Snellen and Anthony Brown from Leiden University, the Netherlands, deduced the mass of the planet Beta Pictoris b from the motion of its host star over a long period of time as captured by both Gaia and Hipparcos.

The planet is a gas giant similar to Jupiter but, according to the new estimate, is 9 to 13 times more massive. It orbits the star Beta Pictoris, the second brightest star in the constellation Pictor.

The planet was only discovered in 2008 in images captured by the Very Large Telescope at the European Southern Observatory in Chile. Both the planet and the star are only about 20 million years old – roughly 225 times younger than the Solar System. Its young age makes the system intriguing but also difficult to study using conventional methods.

“In the Beta Pictoris system, the planet has essentially just formed,” says Ignas. “Therefore we can get a picture of how planets form and how they behave in the early stages of their evolution. On the other hand, the star is very hot, rotates fast, and it pulsates.”

This behaviour makes it difficult for astronomers to accurately measure the star’s radial velocity – the speed at which it appears to periodically move towards and away from the Earth. Tiny changes in the radial velocity of a star, caused by the gravitational pull of planets in its vicinity, are commonly used to estimate masses of exoplanets. But this method mainly works for systems that have already gone through the fiery early stages of their evolution.

In the case of Beta Pictoris b, upper limits of the planet’s mass range had been arrived at before using the radial velocity method. To obtain a better estimate, the astronomers used a different method, taking advantage of Hipparcos’ and Gaia’s measurements that reveal the precise position and motion of the planet’s host star in the sky over time.

“The star moves for different reasons,” says Ignas. “First, the star circles around the centre of the Milky Way, just as the Sun does. That appears from the Earth as a linear motion projected on the sky. We call it proper motion. And then there is the parallax effect, which is caused by the Earth orbiting around the Sun. Because of this, over the year, we see the star from slightly different angles.”

And then there is something that the astronomers describe as ‘tiny wobbles’ in the trajectory of the star across the sky – minuscule deviations from the expected course caused by the gravitational pull of the planet in the star’s orbit. This is the same wobble that can be measured via changes in the radial velocity, but along a different direction – on the plane of the sky, rather than along the line of sight.

“We are looking at the deviation from what you expect if there was no planet and then we measure the mass of the planet from the significance of this deviation,” says Anthony. “The more massive the planet, the more significant the deviation.”

To be able to make such an assessment, astronomers need to observe the trajectory of the star for a long period of time to properly understand the proper motion and the parallax effect.

The Gaia mission, designed to observe more than one billion stars in our Galaxy, will eventually be able to provide information about a large amount of exoplanets. In the 22 months of observations included in Gaia’s second data release, published in April, the satellite has recorded the star Beta Pictoris about thirty times. That, however, is not enough.

“Gaia will find thousands of exoplanets, that’s still on our to-do list,” says Timo Prusti, ESA’s Gaia project scientist. “The reason that the exoplanets can be expected only late in the mission is the fact that to measure the tiny wobble that the exoplanets are causing, we need to trace the position of stars for several years.”

Combining the Gaia measurements with those from ESA’s Hipparcos mission, which observed Beta Pictoris 111 times between 1990 and 1993, enabled Ignas and Anthony to get their result much faster. This led to the first successful estimate of a young planet’s mass using astrometric measurements.

“By combining data from Hipparcos and Gaia, which have a time difference of about 25 years, you get a very long term proper motion,” says Anthony.

“This proper motion also contains the component caused by the orbiting planet. Hipparcos on its own would not have been able to find this planet because it would look like a perfectly normal single star unless we had measured it for a much longer time.

“Now, by combining Gaia and Hipparcos and looking at the difference in the long term and the short term proper motion, we can see the effect of the planet on the star.”

The result represents an important step towards better understanding the processes involved in planet formation, and anticipates the exciting exoplanet discoveries that will be unleashed by Gaia’s future data releases.

Publication: I. A. G. Snellen & A. G. A. Brown, “The mass of the young planet Beta Pictoris b through the astrometric motion of its host star,” Nature Astronomy (2018) </s> The planet Beta Pictoris b is visible orbiting its host star in this composite image from the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) 3.6-m telescope and the NACO instrument on ESO’s 8.2-m Very Large Telescope. The Beta Pictoris system is only about 20 million years old, roughly 225 times younger than the Solar System. Observing this dynamic and rapidly evolving system can help astronomers shed light on the processes of planet formation and early evolution. Credit: ESO/A-M. Lagrange et al.

The mass of a very young exoplanet has been revealed for the first time using data from ESA's star mapping spacecraft Gaia and its predecessor, the quarter-century retired Hipparcos satellite.

Astronomers Ignas Snellen and Anthony Brown from Leiden University, the Netherlands, deduced the mass of the planet Beta Pictoris b from the motion of its host star over a long period of time as captured by both Gaia and Hipparcos.

The planet is a gas giant similar to Jupiter but, according to the new estimate, is 9 to 13 times more massive. It orbits the star Beta Pictoris, the second brightest star in the constellation Pictor.

The planet was only discovered in 2008 in images captured by the Very Large Telescope at the European Southern Observatory in Chile. Both the planet and the star are only about 20 million years old – roughly 225 times younger than the Solar System. Its young age makes the system intriguing but also difficult to study using conventional methods.

"In the Beta Pictoris system, the planet has essentially just formed," says Ignas. "Therefore we can get a picture of how planets form and how they behave in the early stages of their evolution. On the other hand, the star is very hot, rotates fast, and it pulsates."

This behaviour makes it difficult for astronomers to accurately measure the star's radial velocity – the speed at which it appears to periodically move towards and away from the Earth. Tiny changes in the radial velocity of a star, caused by the gravitational pull of planets in its vicinity, are commonly used to estimate masses of exoplanets. But this method mainly works for systems that have already gone through the fiery early stages of their evolution.

In the case of Beta Pictoris b, upper limits of the planet's mass range had been arrived at before using the radial velocity method. To obtain a better estimate, the astronomers used a different method, taking advantage of Hipparcos' and Gaia's measurements that reveal the precise position and motion of the planet's host star in the sky over time.

"The star moves for different reasons," says Ignas. "First, the star circles around the centre of the Milky Way, just as the Sun does. That appears from the Earth as a linear motion projected on the sky. We call it proper motion. And then there is the parallax effect, which is caused by the Earth orbiting around the Sun. Because of this, over the year, we see the star from slightly different angles."

And then there is something that the astronomers describe as 'tiny wobbles' in the trajectory of the star across the sky – minuscule deviations from the expected course caused by the gravitational pull of the planet in the star's orbit. This is the same wobble that can be measured via changes in the radial velocity, but along a different direction – on the plane of the sky, rather than along the line of sight.

Astronomers can measure the mass of exoplanets by looking at tiny deviations in the trajectories of their host stars caused by the gravitational pull of the orbiting planets. These can be observed either along the line of sight, looking for small changes in a star’s radial velocity, or on the plane of the sky, using astrometric measurements. To be able to make accurate assessments, the astrometric observations need to cover a period of many years. In this picture, the white dashed spiral shows the evolution of a star’s trajectory observable from the Earth, caused by the combination of parallax and proper motion. The brown band shows the range of deviations of the star’s trajectory caused by a possible planet orbiting it. Credit: European Space Agency

"We are looking at the deviation from what you expect if there was no planet and then we measure the mass of the planet from the significance of this deviation," says Anthony. "The more massive the planet, the more significant the deviation."

To be able to make such an assessment, astronomers need to observe the trajectory of the star for a long period of time to properly understand the proper motion and the parallax effect.

The Gaia mission, designed to observe more than one billion stars in our Galaxy, will eventually be able to provide information about a large amount of exoplanets. In the 22 months of observations included in Gaia's second data release, published in April, the satellite has recorded the star Beta Pictoris about thirty times. That, however, is not enough.

"Gaia will find thousands of exoplanets, that's still on our to-do list," says Timo Prusti, ESA's Gaia project scientist. "The reason that the exoplanets can be expected only late in the mission is the fact that to measure the tiny wobble that the exoplanets are causing, we need to trace the position of stars for several years."

Combining the Gaia measurements with those from ESA's Hipparcos mission, which observed Beta Pictoris 111 times between 1990 and 1993, enabled Ignas and Anthony to get their result much faster. This led to the first successful estimate of a young planet's mass using astrometric measurements.

"By combining data from Hipparcos and Gaia, which have a time difference of about 25 years, you get a very long term proper motion," says Anthony.

"This proper motion also contains the component caused by the orbiting planet. Hipparcos on its own would not have been able to find this planet because it would look like a perfectly normal single star unless we had measured it for a much longer time.

"Now, by combining Gaia and Hipparcos and looking at the difference in the long term and the short term proper motion, we can see the effect of the planet on the star."

The result represents an important step towards better understanding the processes involved in planet formation, and anticipates the exciting exoplanet discoveries that will be unleashed by Gaia's future data releases.

"The mass of the young planet Beta Pictoris b through the astrometric motion of its host star," by I. Snellen and A. Brown is published in Nature Astronomy, 20 August 2018.

Explore further The longest period transiting planet candidate from K2

More information: I. A. G. Snellen et al. The mass of the young planet Beta Pictoris b through the astrometric motion of its host star, Nature Astronomy (2018). Journal information: Nature Astronomy I. A. G. Snellen et al. The mass of the young planet Beta Pictoris b through the astrometric motion of its host star,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-018-0561-6 </s> Fingerprints of metals and possible traces of water found in low-density exoplanet. Pictured, an artist's conception depicting the Kepler-10 star system, located about 560 light-years away near the Cygnus and Lyra constellations.

An international team of astronomers detected "fingerprints" of metals in the atmosphere of an exoplanet for the first time as well as possible signs of water, a find that could bolster the search for life beyond Earth.

Sitting 332 light years away from Earth, WASP-127b is one of the least dense gas giant exoplanets ever discovered, a feature which makes it unique among thousands of extra-solar worlds cataloged to date. Though it’s nearly one and a half times bigger than Jupiter, our Solar System’s largest planet, the mass of the alien world is not even half of what Jupiter has on offer.

More importantly, the exoplanet takes a little over four days to complete a single orbit of its host star and is heated to temperatures of up to 1,127 degrees Celsius (2060.6 degrees Fahrenheit). The characteristic makes this world one hell of a place to live, but, despite knowing this since the planet’s discovery in 2016, a team of researchers from the University of Cambridge and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) used it as a subject of study while using the Gran Telescopio Canarias, a reflecting telescope in Spain.

The team observed the atmospheric composition of the exoplanet and detected fingerprints signaling a high concentration of alkali metals, mainly sodium, potassium, and lithium. The discovery, a first on an exoplanet, and some modeling work also helped the team determine that the skies of the planet are partly clear.

“The detection of a trace element such as lithium in a planetary atmosphere is a major breakthrough and motivates new follow-up observations and detailed theoretical modeling to corroborate the findings,” study co-author Nikku Madhusudhan said in a statement. The team believes the discovery of lithium could provide critical insight into the formation of the planet and the evolution of the WASP-127 system. Even the star of the planet, WASP-127, is rich in lithium, which suggests it could be a red giant, thousands of times bigger than the Sun, or a supernova.

“The particular characteristics of this planet allowed us to perform a detailed study of its rich atmospheric composition,” study’s first author Guo Chen said in the statement.

But that’s not it. Along with traces of metal in the atmosphere, the team also found possible signs of water, which, if confirmed, could mean a major breakthrough in the field of astronomy. “While this detection is not statistically significant, as water features are weak in the visible range, our data indicate that additional observations in the near-infrared should be able to detect it,” co-author Enric Pallé said of the possible discovery of water.

The team adds that further observations from James Webb Space Telescope, NASA’s successor to the Hubble, should be able to take a close look at the atmosphere of WASP-127b and reveal more about the low-density gas giant and its characteristics.

The study titled, “The GTC exoplanet transit spectroscopy survey IX. Detection of Haze, Na, K, and Li in the super-Neptune WASP-127b,” will be published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics and an arXiv preprint is available online. </s> An exoplanet about twice the size of Earth has been found orbiting a star called Pi Mensae about 60 light years away. It’s the first world discovered by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) – a spacecraft that began surveying the galaxy just two months ago.

“This is one of the first objects we looked at,” says Chelsea Huang, a TESS scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “We were immediately saying ‘hey this is too good to be true!’”

The alien world, Pi Mensae c, takes 6.27 days to complete an orbit around its parent star, Pi Mensae. That star is so bright, it’s visible to the naked-eye from a dark-sky site in the southern hemisphere. It was previously found to have a planet the mass of ten Jupiters circling it.

TESS works by watching thousands of nearby stars in the Milky Way, looking for signs of planets transiting them – miniscule dips in the stars’ brightness can give away the presence of an orbiting planet momentarily passing in front of them. Such a blip in the light from Pi Mensae was identified in the first month of observations beamed home by TESS, says Huang.

The team confirmed the presence of Pi Mensae c by examining separate studies of the light of its parent star made by ground-based observatories. This analysis revealed a tiny tell-tale wobble in the star’s motion that the researchers attribute to the gravitational pull of TESS’s newly detected world.

Based on the planet’s radius it’s likely a mini-Neptune with a gaseous hydrogen and helium atmosphere, says Hugh Osborn, an exoplanet researcher at the Marseille Astrophysics Laboratory in France. “Pretty much all the planets we find at that radius have this gassy layer,” he says. “So it wouldn’t look anything like Earth.”

Shortly after the first detection, NASA announced that TESS had found a second planet. This new world, called LHS 3844 b, orbits a small star 49 light years away. It is smaller than Pi Mensae c, only 1.3 times the size of Earth, but much hotter at an average temperature of about 532°C.

It is so close to its star that it orbits once every 11 minutes. The TESS team say that it may be the easiest planet to observe that is less than twice Earth’s size. That means it will be easier to check if it has an atmosphere, although it is so hot that it likely does not.

Read more: The galaxy is full of ‘water world’ exoplanets where life could evolve </s> An exoplanet twice the size of Earth, known as Wolf 503b, has been found just 145 light-years away from our home planet.

The researchers noted that Wolf 503b is interesting not only because of its size (it may potentially be a "Super-Earth"), but also because of its orbit — it revolves around its star once every six days.

An exoplanet is a planet outside our solar system.

"Wolf 503b is one of the only planets with a radius near the gap that has a star that is bright enough to be amenable to more detailed study that will better constrain its true nature," said Björn Benneke, a UdeM professor, in a statement. "It provides a key opportunity to better understand the origin of this radius gap as well as the nature of the intriguing populations of 'super-Earths' and 'sub-Neptunes' as a whole."

PLANET NINE AND SIX OTHER BAFFLING SPACE MYSTERIES SCIENTISTS CAN'T EXPLAIN

The findings were published in a study conducted by American, Canadian and German researchers. Merrin Peterson, a graduate student from the Institute for research on exoplanets is the lead author on the study.

The new exoplanet was found using data from NASA's Kepler Space Telescope, which provided a further affirmation that most planets in the Milky Way galaxy are approximately the same size as Wolf 503b.

"Since there is nothing like them in our solar system, astronomers wonder whether these planets are small and rocky 'super-Earths' or gaseous mini versions of Neptune," the statement added.

Wolf 503b's close proximity to Earth makes it appear brighter than other objects in the sky. Given its brightness, researchers are hoping to next look at the mass of the planet, which could tell something about its composition.

PLANET NINE MAY EXIST, BUT IT MIGHT BE HIDING BEHIND NEPTUNE

If it has a composition similar to Earth, it would have to have a bulk density approximately 14 times its mass. If it were like Neptune, with an atmosphere largely comprised of gas, "it would be approximately half as massive," researchers said.

The program used to identify Wolf 503b also found that its host star is an orange dwarf, meaning its not as bright as our Sun, but twice as old. Peterson said that the discovery and confirmation of the new exoplanet "was very rapid," citing the latest release of the Kepler K2 data in May.

Due to its proximity to Earth, Wolf 503, the star Wolf 503b orbits, will be a "prime target" for the James Webb Space Telescope, which will help determine the planet's atmosphere and see if it contains any of the necessary building blocks for life, including hydrogen and water.

ALIEN LIFE LOOMS? NEWLY DISCOVERED EXOPLANET MAY BE BEST CANDIDATE, EXPERTS SAY

"By investigating the nature of Wolf 503b, we'll understand more about the structure of planets near the radius gap and more generally about the diversity of exoplanets present in our galaxy," said Peterson. "I look forward to learning more about it."

The find is the latest in a host of new planet discoveries. In February 2017, an international team of astronomers announced the discovery of 60 new planets orbiting stars close to Earth’s Solar System, including a rocky “super Earth.”

In the same month, NASA revealed the discovery of seven Earth-like planets orbiting the star TRAPPIST-1 40 light years from Earth. Three of the planets are in the “habitable zone” where liquid water can exist, according to scientists.

Two months later, in a separate research project, scientists reported that an exoplanet 40 light-years from Earth may be the best place to look for signs of life outside our solar system.

ASTRONOMERS DISCOVER 60 NEW WORLDS, FIND 'SUPER EARTH'

Earlier this year, for the first time, scientists announced the discovery of planets in galaxies beyond the Milky Way.

Using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory, a team of astrophysicists from the University of Oklahoma identified the extragalactic planets about 3.8 billion light-years away. The space observatory helped scientists find about 2,000 objects with comparable mass to the Moon and Jupiter.

Fox News' James Rogers contributed to this story. Follow Chris Ciaccia on Twitter @Chris_Ciaccia </s> An international team of researchers, led by Jessica Spake from the University of Exeter, discovered evidence of the inert gas on 'super-Neptune' exoplanet WASP-107b, found 200 light years from Earth and in the constellation of Virgo.

The pivotal breakthrough, made from observations of the exoplanet using the Hubble Space Telescope, revealed an abundance of helium in the upper atmosphere of the exoplanet, which was only discovered in 2017.

The strength of the helium signal detected was so large that scientists believe the planet's upper atmosphere extends tens of thousands of kilometres into space.

Helium is the second most common element in the universe and it has long-since been predicted to be one of the most readily-detectable gases on giant exoplanets. However, this pioneering new research is the first time that the gas has been successfully found.

Now, the research team believe that the ground-breaking study could pave the way for scientists to discover more atmospheres around Earth-sized exoplanets across the galaxy.

The research is published in the leading scientific journal, Nature, on May 3, 2018.

Jessica Spake, part of Exeter's Physics and Astronomy department said: "We hope to use this technique with the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, for example, to learn what kind of planets have large envelopes of hydrogen and helium, and how long planets can hold on to their atmospheres. By measuring infrared light, we can see further out into space than if we were using ultraviolet light."

WASP-107b is a very low-density planet similar in size to Jupiter, but with only 12 per cent of its mass. Orbiting its host star every six days, it has one of the coolest atmospheres of any of the exoplanets discovered, although at 500 C is still radically hotter that Earth.

By analysing the spectrum of light passing through the upper part of the exoplanet's atmosphere, the researchers were able to detect the presence of helium in an excited state.

The significant strength of the signal measured exploited a new technique that doesn't rely on ultraviolet measurements which have historically been used to study upper exoplanet atmospheres. The team believe this new technique, which uses infrared light, could open up new paths to exploring the atmospheres of more Earth-sized exoplanets found in the further reaches of the universe.

Tom Evans, a co-author also from the University of Exeter added: "The helium we detected extends far out to space as a tenuous cloud surrounding the planet. If smaller, Earth-sized planets have similar helium clouds, this new technique offers an exciting means to study their upper atmospheres in the very near future.."

Helium was first detected as an unknown yellow spectral line signature in sunlight in 1868. Devon-based astronomer Norman Lockyer was the first to propose this line was due to a new element, and named it after the Greek Titan of the Sun, Helios.

It has since been discovered to be one of the main constituents of the planets Jupiter and Saturn in our Solar System.

Explore further: Hubble observes exoplanet atmosphere in more detail than ever before

More information: Helium in the eroding atmosphere of an exoplanet, Nature (2018). nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0067-5 </s> In what is surely the biggest news since the hunt for exoplanets began, NASA announced today the discovery of a system of seven exoplanets orbiting the nearby star of TRAPPIST-1. Discovered by a team of astronomers using data from the TRAPPIST telescope in Chile and the Spitzer Space Telescope, this find is especially exciting since all of these planets are believed to be Earth-sized and terrestrial (i.e. rocky).

But most exciting of all is the fact that three of these rocky exoplanets orbit within the star’s habitable zone (aka. “Goldilocks Zone”). This means, in effect, that these planets are capable of having liquid water on their surfaces and could therefore support life. As far as extra-solar planet discoveries go, this is without precedent, and the discovery heralds a new age in the search for life beyond our Solar System.

The team behind the discovery was led by Michael Gillon, an astronomer from the University of Liege in Belgium. Using the The Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope (TRAPPIST) telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) La Silla Observatory in Chile, he and his colleagues first noticed the presence of two planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system in May of 2016.

The team made their observations of this star system – which is located about 39 light years from Earth in the direction of the Aquarius constellation – from September to December 2015. This discovery was immediately followed-up using several ground-based telescopes, which included including the ESO’s Very Large Telescope, and the Spitzer Space Telescope.

Data from these surveys confirmed the existence of the two planets, and revealed five more – making this the largest find around a single star in exoplanet-hunting history. Relying on the Spitzer data, Dr. Gillon and his team were also able to obtain precise information on the planets using the transit method. By measuring the periodic dips in TRAPPIST-1’s luminosity (from the planet’s passing in front of it), they were able to measure their sizes, masses and densities.

This is especially important when studying exoplanets. Not only does it allow scientists to make accurate assessments of a planet’s composition (i.e. whether or not its rocky, icy, or gaseous), it is key in determining whether or not a planet could be habitable. It was also the first time in which accurate constraints were placed upon the masses and radii of exoplanets using this method.

A follow-up survey was then mounted with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to study the three innermost planets and look for signs of hydrogen and helium – the chemical signatures that would indicate if the planets were gas giants. Hubble detected no evidence of hydrogen and helium atmospheres, which only strengthened the case for these planets being rocky in nature.

Another exciting aspect of all this is that these seven exoplanets – which are some of the best candidates for habitability – are near enough to Earth to be studies closely. As Michael Gillon, lead author of the paper and the principal investigator of the TRAPPIST exoplanet survey at the University of Liege, said in a NASA press release:

Nikole Lewis, the co-leader of the Hubble study and an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute, was also on hand at the NASA press briefing where the findings were announced. There, she shared information that was obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope. And as she explained, of the three worlds that are in the habitable zone – TRAPPIST-1e, f, and g – all experience conditions that are very similar to what we experience here on Earth.

TRAPPIST-1e is the innermost of the three exoplanets. It is very close in size to Earth, and receives about the same amount of light as Earth does – which means temperatures are likely to be very close to Earth’s as well. TRAPPIST-1f, meanwhile, is a potentially-water rich world that is also likely to be the same size as Earth. It has a 9-day orbit, and receives about the same amount of sunlight as Mars.

The outermost of the habitable zone planets is Trappist 1g. With a radius that is 13% larger than that of Earth, it is the largest planet in the system, and receives about the same amount of light as a body positioned between Mars and the Asteroid Belt would. Between these three exoplanets, and the four others in the system, astronomers now have a multiple candidates within the same star system to study what potentially-habitable worlds might look like.

During the course of the NASA press briefing, Dr. Gillon stressed why the discovery of this system is a major boon for astronomers and planetary scientists. Not only is this the first time that so many exoplanets have been discovered around the same star, but the fact that it is a red dwarf – a class of small, cooler, dimmer stars – is especially encouraging.

Compared to other classes, red dwarfs (aka. M-class stars) are the most frequent type of star in the Universe – making up an estimated 70% of stars in our galaxy alone. On top of that, the TRAPPIST-1 system is rather unique. As Gillon explained, the planets are in close enough proximity that they gravitationally interact with one another. Their proximity would also make for some excellent viewing opportunities for a person standing on the surface of one of them.

“The planets are close enough to each other,” he said, “that if you were on the surface of one, you would have a wonderful view of the others. You would see them not as we see Venus or Mars from Earth (as bright stars), but as we see the Moon. They would be as large or larger than the Moon.”

In the coming weeks and months, NASA plans to follow-up on this system of planets even more. At the moment, the Kepler space telescope is studying the system, conducting measurements of minuscule changes in the star’s brightness due to transiting planets. Operating as the K2 mission, the spacecraft’s observations will allow astronomers to refine the properties of the known planets, as well as search for additional planets in the system.

In the meantime, Dr. Gillon and his team will be using ground-based telescopes to search 1000 of the nearest ultra-cool dwarf stars to see if they too have multi-planet systems. Nikole Lewis indicated that Hubble will be conducting further observations of TRAPPIST-1 in order to obtain information about the planets’ atmospheres.

These studies will determine what gases make up the atmospheres, but will also be looking for tell-tale signs of those that indicate the presence of organic life – i.e. methane, ozone, oxygen, etc.

“The TRAPPIST-1 system provides one of the best opportunities in the next decade to study the atmospheres around Earth-size planets,” she said. “Not only will these studies let us know if any of these planets have the kind of atmospheres that are conducive to life, they will also tell us much about the formation and evolution processes of the surface – which are also key factors in determining habitability.”

The Spitzer Space Telescope will also be trained on this system in order to obtain follow-up information on the planets’ atmospheres. Besides looking for biological indicators (such as oxygen gas, ozone and methane), it will also be trying to determine the greenhouse gas content of the atmospheres – which will help put further constrains on the surface temperatures of the planets.

On top of that, next-generation missions – like the James Webb Telescope – are expected to play a vital role in learning more about this system. As Sara Seager – a professor of planetary science and physics at MIT – explained in the course of the briefing, the discovery of a system with multiple potentially-habitable planets was a giant, accelerated leap forward in the hunt for life beyond our Solar System.

“Goldilocks has several sisters,” as she put it. “An amazing system like this one lets us know there are many more life-bearing worlds out there. This star system is a veritable laboratory for studying stars orbiting very cool, very dim stars. We get to test many theories about these worlds, being tidally-locked and amount of radiation coming from host star.”

Thomas Zurbuchen – the associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate – was also on hand at the briefing. In addition to expressing how this was a first for NASA and exoplanet-hunters everywhere, he also expressed how exciting it was in the context of searching for life beyond our Solar System:

By Matt Williams - 

 Matt Williams is the Curator of the Guide to Space for Universe Today, a regular contributor to HeroX, a science fiction author, and a Taekwon-Do instructor. He lives with his family on Vancouver Island in beautiful BC. </s> For the first time in the history of cosmic observations, scientists have detected signs of helium, one of the main constituents of Neptune and Saturn, on a planet sitting several hundred light years away from our stellar neighborhood.

The inert gas, according to the theoretical models, is the second most common element in the universe after hydrogen. However, despite searching it for years, scientists weren’t able to detect its presence anywhere beyond our solar system.

But now the wait is finally over, thanks to NASA and ESA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Just recently, an international team of astronomers, led by Jessica Spake from the University Of Exeter, United Kingdom, used the space telescope to analyze the starlight passing through the upper atmosphere of an exoplanet dubbed WASP-107b and discovered helium in abundance.

The signal of the gas, according to a release from the University, was so massive that the scientists now believe the upper atmosphere of WASP-107b could be going up to thousands of kilometers into space. As a result of this, several gases present in the atmosphere might be spewing out in space. This would mean that the distant world is losing some 0.1 to 4 percent of its atmospheric mass every billion years.

Discovered just last year, WASP-107b fits into the category of "super-Neptunes" or planets that are five to seven times as large as Earth and is located some 200-light-years away from us in the constellation Virgo. Though this exoplanet is just as big as Jupiter in terms of size, it’s density is just 12 percent of that on Jupiter.

“The strong signal from helium we measured demonstrates a new technique to study upper layers of exoplanet atmospheres in a wider range of planets,” Spake said in a statement.

The researchers' idea is to measure the light in infrared wavelengths as it changes while passing through the planet’s atmosphere. This not only proves effective in characterizing the atmospheric composition but is also better than the current method of measuring optical and ultraviolet wavelength, which only works for planets located in close proximity.

“We know there is helium in the Earth’s upper atmosphere and this new technique may help us to detect atmospheres around Earth-sized exoplanets — which is very difficult with current technology,” Spake added.

The revolutionary technique may also help scientists determine how long an exoplanet may hold on to its atmosphere. In addition, it may get even more effective with the launch of James Webb Space Telescope in 2020.

“Our new method, along with future telescopes such as the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, will allow us to analyze atmospheres of exoplanets in far greater detail than ever before,” study co-author David Sing said in the statement.

The study, titled "Helium in the eroding atmosphere of an exoplanet," was published May 2 in the journal Nature. </s> The new discovery marks the first time that the element was observed in the atmosphere of a planet outside of our solar system.

A team of astronomers made an important discovery with the Hubble Space Telescope, detecting helium in the atmosphere of exoplanet WASP-107b. This marks the first time researchers have found signs of the element in a planet beyond our solar system, and could also mean that scientists can study the composition of the air in exoplanets without having to wait for another space telescope to be launched for such a purpose.

According to a news release published by the European Space Agency, the multinational team made the discovery with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, using the instrument to detect helium in WASP-107b’s atmosphere. The researchers consider this finding important, as helium ranks behind hydrogen as the universe’s second-most common element, and had never been confirmed to exist on exoplanets.

WASP-107b is located about 200 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Virgo, and is described as a “super-Neptune” exoplanet, one that has a similar diameter to Jupiter, but only one-eighth of the planet’s mass. Space.com observed that this makes it one of the lowest-density planets known to astronomers. The exoplanet also takes only 5.7 days to orbit its host star, and its atmosphere is definitely not conducive to life as we know it, with temperatures of 932 degrees Fahrenheit, or 500 degrees Celsius.

In an email to Space.com, University of Exeter researcher and study lead author Jessica Spake explained that her team used new methodologies to study the radiation-heavy upper reaches of an exoplanet’s atmosphere. The team’s findings were published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

“Hopefully, we’ll be able to study many more upper planetary atmospheres this way,” Spake added.

Both Space.com and the ESA press release explained the methodologies Spake and her colleagues utilized, which included studying the infrared spectrum of WASP-107b’s atmosphere. Prior to the new study, analyses of exoplanet atmospheres involved ultraviolet light, which is mostly blocked out by Earth’s atmosphere. That’s not the case with infrared radiation, which can be detected by ground-based telescopes, as it passes through Earth’s atmosphere, including its air and clouds. Furthermore, Spake noted that ultraviolet analysis only works with nearby exoplanets, but not more distant ones like WASP-107b.

Aside from the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers might have another valuable resource available in the next few years for analyzing the atmosphere of exoplanets like WASP-107b. According to Spake, there’s a good chance that NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, which is now expected to launch in May 2020, will be able to make these detections. Additionally, there are several ground-based telescopes, including Hawaii’s Keck Telescope and the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescopes, that might be capable of consistent observations of exoplanet atmospheres.
The mass of exoplanet Beta Pictoris b is measured directly for the first time through astrometry, giving it a mass of 11±2 Jupiter masses, and marking one of the first times an exoplanet was detectable through measuring its effect on the host star's location.