NASA will hold a media teleconference at 2 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, March 19, to report on the first-ever detection of the organic molecule methane in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting a distant star.
Though the planet is too hot to support life as we know it, the finding demonstrates the ability to detect organic molecules spectroscopically around Earth-like planets in habitable zones around stars.
Briefing participants are:
— Dr. Mark Swain, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
— Dr. Sara Seager, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
This unique discovery, made with Hubble’s Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS), will be featured in the March 20 issue of the journal Nature.
To participate in the teleconference, reporters must contact Ray Villard at 410-338-4514 or Cheryl Gundy at 410-338-4707 at the Space Telescope Science Institute by noon on March 19 for the call-in number and passcode. At the start of the briefing, images and supporting graphics will be posted on the Web at:
http://hubblesite.org/news/2008/11
Audio of the teleconference will be streamed live on NASA’s Web site at:
For more information about NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope on the Web, visit:
Source: NASA
CONTACT: J.D. Harrington of NASA Headquarters, +1-202-358-5241,
j.d.harrington@nasa.gov, or Ray Villard of Space Telescope Science Institute,
+1-410-338-4514, villard@stsci.edu
