First water clouds discovered beyond the solar system!
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Astronomers in Washington DC have found the first ever evidence for water clouds beyond the solar system. The discovery was made on a 'failed star' (artist's impression shown) 7.3 light-years from Earth.The object is a brown dwarf called WISE J0855-0714 that is up to 10 times the mass of Jupiter.
This revealed that the colour of the gas giant matches the predicted models of a brown dwarf with clouds of water ice in its atmosphere. While water vapour has been spotted in exoplanets before, this is the first time water clouds have been spotted.
It’s thought that as much as half of the planet is obscured by clouds, making it a partly cloudy world like Earth.
Even in our own solar system, the only water clouds known of are on Earth and Mars; for the giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn, they are too cold and ammonia ice clouds cover suspected water clouds below. And finding a partly cloudy world is important, as aside from Earth most other planets with clouds we know of such as Venus and Jupiter are blanketed in clouds, with no apparent break to the surface.
