Travis Barman is a professor at the

Lunar and Planetary Laboratory The Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL) is a research center for planetary science located in Tucson, Arizona. It is also a graduate school, constituting the Department of Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona. LPL is one of the wor ...

at the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it ...

, specializing in the theoretical and observational aspects of extrasolar planets. Barman was previously at the

Lowell Observatory Lowell Observatory is an astronomical observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, United States. Lowell Observatory was established in 1894, placing it among the oldest observatories in the United States, and was designated a National Historic Landmark ...

in Flagstaff, Arizona, from 2006 until 2013. While an

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...

at Lowell, he studied a combination of the previously published

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the Orbiting Solar Observatory, first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most ...

measurements and new theoretical models, and found strong evidence for water absorption in the atmosphere of

HD 209458 b HD 209458 b is an exoplanet, specifically a hot Jupiter, that orbits the solar analog HD 209458 in the constellation Pegasus, some from the Solar System. The radius of the planet's orbit is , or one-eighth the radius of Mercury's orbit (). Th ...

.Water Found in Extrasolar Planet's Atmosphere
- Space.comBarman, T.S. (2007
"Identification of Absorption Features in an Extrasolar Planet Atmosphere".
''Astrophysical Journal Letters'' (accepted for publication) A planet about 150 light years away from earth, HD 209458 b was known previously to contain an evaporating hydrogen atmosphere, along with oxygen and carbon. Though the planet is only 7 million kilometers away from its star, the planet is not hot enough to break the water molecules. HD 209458 b, a transiting planet, passes in front of its star, where it can be viewed from earth every three and a half days. When this happens,

water vapor Water vapor, water vapour, or aqueous vapor is the gaseous phase of Properties of water, water. It is one Phase (matter), state of water within the hydrosphere. Water vapor can be produced from the evaporation or boiling of liquid water or from th ...

in the planet's atmosphere causes the planet to appear slightly larger in the infrared part of the starlight than in the visible portion. Barman found the water signature after applying new theoretical models he developed to visible and infrared Hubble data collected by then-

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

graduate student Heather Knutson in 2007, which measured the perceived size of the planet over a broad range of wavelengths.

References

Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American astronomers {{US-astronomer-stub