Water was discovered outside the solar system for the first time

Water vapor and clouds are quite common forms of matter in a star outside the solar system. This is an important finding for astronomers.

WISE 0855 is a brown dwarf that astronomers discovered in 2014. Light 7.2 years from Earth, it is the coldest object outside the Solar System that people have known, Daily Mail reported.

However, WISE 0855 emits low light. It is at least 5 times more faint than any celestial object in the universe that can be observed on the ground telescope.

Illustration of WISE 0855 brown dwarf, which is capable of creating water clouds outside the Solar System.Its shape is similar to Jupiter.(Photo: AURA).

Since the normal optical telescope cannot see WISE 0855, astronomers from the University of California at Santa Cruz, California, USA use Gemini North infrared telescope in the Hawaiian Islands and spectrophotometers. Near infrared to observe it. Thus they can study the details of the star's composition and chemical composition.

The team found many convincing evidence of the existence of water-filled clouds or ice on WISE 0855. This is the first time humans have seen water clouds outside the Solar System.

"We had hoped that the group would find a celestial body cold enough to create water clouds and WISE 0855 provided the most reliable evidence , " said Andrew Skemer, an astronomical and astrophysicist University of California, comment.

The research results also showed that WISE 0855 has quite similar structure to Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, but the volume is 5 times larger. Its surface temperature is about minus 23 degrees Celsius, equivalent to Jupiter's surface temperature.

"Steam and clouds are quite common in WISE 0855's atmosphere. Its shape is very similar to Jupiter , " Professor Skemer describes.