In early December, NASA’s Hubble telescope found faint traces of water on distant planets far outside the solar system. This could help extend research and may lead to discoveries of planets very similar to Earth.

The five planets are known as WASP-17b, HD209458b, WASP-12b, WASP-19b and XO-1b. They are referred to as exoplanets, because they orbit stars some trillion miles away and are outside our solar system. They are also massive planets that orbit very close to the star, leading to the name Hot Jupiters.

The Hubble telescope had recently discovered atmospheric water on a few planets, but the research had not gone to this extent yet. A few months prior, Dr. Leo Drake Deming and his team discovered traces of water on two of the planets, HD209458b and XO-1b.

The latest mission was run by Avi Mandell of NASA. In Mandell’s biography on the NASA website, he says he is “a civil servant research scientist in the Planetary Systems Laboratory at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.”

Mandell is proud of the mission and hopes to expand on it. “We’re very confident that we see a water signature for multiple planets,” Mandell explained, “This work really opens the door for comparing how much water is present in atmospheres on different kinds of exoplanets, for example hotter versus cooler ones.”

It was a difficult discovery to come by. The telescope picked up infrared light as the planet passed the front of the star. If certain wavelengths were discovered, then it would be apparent that water is on the planets.

This could mean a lot for future research. It proves that there indeed could be another planet that can support human life.

Junior Nick Costa added, “It’s interesting to know that life could be on other planets. They could be like us.”

The Hubble Telescope went into orbit in 1990. The telescope is just outside the Earth’s atmosphere. It orbits the Earth every 97 minutes. It’s powered solely by two 25-foot solar panels. It has made numerous big discoveries in the past. It confirmed that dark matter exists within the universe. It also has discover that there are black holes in most galaxies and was even able to figure out when the universe was originally formed.

After yet another big discovery, astronomers have much more to research. The Hubble Telescope has revealed more important information, and expect much more to follow in the future.