Artist's concept of the extrasolar planet HAT-P-7b
07/04/2011
This is an artist's concept of the extrasolar planet HAT-P-7b. It is a "hot Jupiter" class planet (1.4 times Jupiter's diameter) orbiting a star that is much hotter than our Sun, about 1,044 light-years (320 parsecs) distant in the constellation Cygnus at celestial coordinates R.A. 19h 28m 59s and Dec. +47°58' 11". Hubble Space Telescope's millionth science observation was trained on this planet to look for the presence of water vapor and to study the planet's atmospheric structure via spectroscopy. Planets with orbits inclined nearly edge-on to Earth can be observed passing in front of and behind their stars. This allows for the planetary atmospheres to be studied by Hubble's spectrometers. Hubble's unique capabilities allow astronomers to do follow-up observations of exoplanets to characterize the composition and structure of their atmospheres. Hubble's one millionth exposure was July 4, 2011, 1427 minutes long, from the WFC3/IR Instrument. See http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2011/22/image/a/.
