Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes Probat of Subnaption. Astronomers are curious about the two recently discovered classes of planets not found in the solar system, the so-called super-urts and subnaptunes, alien worlds with masses and sizes intermediate between Earth and Neptune. Now, the NASA-ESA Hubble Space Telescope and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have teamed up to identify, for the first time, the detailed chemical fingerprint of a subnaption. Our solar system contains two major classes of planets, Earth is a rocky terrestrial planet, as are Mercury, Venus, and Mars. At about the distance of the asteroid belt, there is a frost blind where space is so-called more volatile material, like water, can remain frozen. All of here live gas and ice giants, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, which have bulked up on hydrogen and helium and other volatiles. A subnaptunexal plane at called Glee's 3470B is unlike anything found in the solar system. Also known as GJA 3470B, the planet is approximately 96 light years away and circles a re-war star in the general direction of the constellation cancer. Glee's 3470B resembles a cross between Earth and Neptune, with the large rocky core buried under a deep, crushing hydrogen and helium atmosphere. Its mass is 12.6 times that of Earth, but somewhat less than that of Neptune, which weighs in at 17 Earth masses. Many similar worlds have been discovered by NASA's Keppler Space Telescope. In fact, 80% of the planets in our Milky Way galaxy may fall into this mass range. However, astronomers have never been able to understand the chemical nature of such a planet until now. By inventorying the contents of Glee's 3470B's atmosphere, University of Montreal astronomer Björn Bent and colleagues were able to uncover clues about the planet's nature and door region. This is a big discovery from the planet formation perspective. Dr. Bent said, Glee's 3470B orbits very close to the star and is far less massive than Jupiter, but has managed to accrete the primordial hydrogen, helium atmosphere that is largely unpolluted by heavier elements. The team analyzed a combined Hubble, a spitzer-dotuset of 12 transits and 20 eclipses of Glee's 3470B. We expected an atmosphere strongly enriched in heavier elements like oxygen and carbon-wish-our-forming abundant water vapor and methane gas, similar to what we see on Neptune. Dr. Bent said, instead, we found an atmosphere that is so poor and heavy elements that its composition resembles the hydrogen, helium-rich composition of the sun. Other etched sawbanes called half-duperers are thought to form far from their stars and over time my grate much closer. But this planet seems to have formed just where it is today. The most plausible explanation is that Glee's 3470B was born precariously close to its red dwarf star, which is about half the mass of our sun. The planet started out as a dry rock and rapidly accreted hydrogen from a pro-to-plane oteridisk when its star was very young. We're seeing an object that was able to accrete hydrogen from the pro-to-plane oteridisk, but didn't run away to become a hawk Jupiter. This isn't intriguing regime. Dr. Bent said, one explanation is that the disk dissipated before the planet could bulk up further. The planet got stuck being a sub-naptum.