Astronomers used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to look for water vapor in the atmosphere of three exoplanets, and found that that the three, orbiting stars similar to the sun, are "surprisingly" dry.
Previously, experts believed that the three exoplanets, which have been called HD 189733b, HD 209458b and WASP-12b, were perfect candidates for harboring water vapor in their atmospheres.
The planets have temperatures ranging between 1,500 degrees to 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit, according to a NASA release.
The planets were found to have very little water however, compared to what the astronomers predicted by standard planet-formation theories.
"Our water measurement in one of the planets, HD 209458b, is the highest-precision measurement of any chemical compound in a planet outside our solar system, and we can now say with much greater certainty than ever before that we've found water in an exoplanet," Nikku Madhusudhan of the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge, England and the study's lead author, said in a statement, according to the release. "However, the low water abundance we have found so far is quite astonishing."
Research was published in a recent edition of The Astrophysical Journal Letters journal.
The three exoplanets, also known as "hot Jupiters" can be found between 60 and 900 light-years away from Earth, according to the release.
Astronomers believe that the new results could play a big role in the search for water on potentially inhabitable Earth-sized exoplanets.
"We have to revisit planet formation and migration models of giant planets, especially 'hot Jupiters,' and investigate how they're formed," Madhusudhan said. "We should be prepared for much lower water abundances than predicted when looking at super-Earths."
In order to figure out the amount of water vapor in each of the planet's atmospheres, the astronomers used Hubble to analyze the planets' near-infrared spectrum, according to NASA.
They added that detecting water on transiting planets is close to impossible from the ground due to the amount of water in Earth's atmosphere, which contaminates the observation.
"There are so many things we still don't know about exoplanets, so this opens up a new chapter in understanding how planets and solar systems form," Drake Deming of the University of Maryland, said in the statement, according to the release. "The problem is that we are assuming the water to be as abundant as in our own solar system. What our study has shown is that water features could be a lot weaker than our expectations."
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