Much like detectives who study fingerprints to identify the culprit, scientists used NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes to find the "fingerprints" of water in the atmosphere of a hot, bloated, Saturn-mass exoplanet some 700 light-years away. And, they found a lot of water. In fact, the planet, known as WASP-39b, has three times as much water as Saturn does.

Though no planet like this resides in our solar system, WASP-39b can provide new insights into how and where planets form around a star, say researchers. This exoplanet is so unique, it underscores the fact that the more astronomers learn about the complexity of other worlds, the more there is to learn about their origins. This latest observation is a significant step toward characterizing these worlds.

Although the researchers predicted they'd see water, they were surprised by how much water they found in this "hot Saturn." Because WASP-39b has so much more water than our famously ringed neighbor, it must have formed differently. The amount of water suggests that the planet actually developed far away from the star, where it was bombarded by a lot of icy material. WASP-39b likely had an interesting evolutionary history as it migrated in, taking an epic journey across its planetary system and perhaps obliterating planetary objects in its path.

"We need to look outward so we can understand our own solar system," explained lead investigator Hannah Wakeford of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and the University of Exeter in Devon, United Kingdom. "But exoplanets are showing us that planet formation is more complicated and more confusing than we thought it was. And that's fantastic!"

Wakeford and her team were able to analyze the atmospheric components of this exoplanet, which is similar in mass to Saturn but profoundly different in many other ways. By dissecting starlight filtering through the planet's atmosphere into its component colors, the team found clear evidence for water. This water is detected as vapor in the atmosphere.

Using Hubble and Spitzer, the team has captured the most complete spectrum of an exoplanet's atmosphere possible with present-day technology. "This spectrum is thus far the most beautiful example we have of what a clear exoplanet atmosphere looks like," said Wakeford.

"WASP-39b shows exoplanets can have much different compositions than those of our solar system," said co-author David Sing of the University of Exeter. "Hopefully, this diversity we see in exoplanets will give us clues in figuring out all the different ways a planet can form and evolve."

Located in the constellation Virgo, WASP-39b whips around a quiet, Sun-like star, called WASP-39, once every four days. The exoplanet is currently positioned more than 20 times closer to its star than Earth is to the Sun. It is tidally locked, meaning it always shows the same face to its star.

Its day-side temperature is a scorching 1,430 degrees Fahrenheit (776.7 degrees Celsius). Powerful winds transport heat from the dayside around the planet, keeping the permanent nightside almost as hot. Although it is called a "hot Saturn," WASP-39b is not known to have rings. Instead, is has a puffy atmosphere that is free of high-altitude clouds, allowing Wakeford and her team to peer down into its depths.

Looking ahead, Wakeford hopes to use NASA's James Webb Space Telescope - scheduled to launch in 2019 - to get an even more complete spectrum of the exoplanet. Webb will be able to give information about the planet's atmospheric carbon, which absorbs light at longer infrared wavelengths than Hubble can see. By understanding the amount of carbon and oxygen in the atmosphere, scientists can learn even more about where and how this planet formed.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at Caltech in Pasadena. Spacecraft operations are based at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Littleton, Colorado. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at IPAC at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

For more information about NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/hubble

For more information about NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/spitzer

News Media Contact

Calla CofieldJet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.818-354-5011calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.govAnn Jenkins / Ray VillardSpace Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland410-338-4488 / 410-338-4514jenkins@stsci.edu / villard@stsci.edu2018-041</s>An international team of scientists has used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to study the atmosphere of the hot exoplanet WASP-39b. By combining this new data with older data they created the most complete study yet of an exoplanet atmosphere. The atmospheric composition of WASP-39b hints that the formation processes of exoplanets can be very different from those of our own Solar System giants.

Investigating exoplanet atmospheres can provide new insight into how and where planets form around a star. “We need to look outward to help us understand our own Solar System,” explains lead investigator Hannah Wakeford from the University of Exeter in the UK and the Space Telescope Science Institute in the USA.

Therefore the British-American team combined the capabilities of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope with those of other ground- and space-based telescopes for a detailed study of the exoplanet WASP-39b. They have produced the most complete spectrum of an exoplanet’s atmosphere possible with present-day technology [1].

WASP-39b is orbiting a Sun-like star, about 700 light-years from Earth. The exoplanet is classified as a “Hot-Saturn”, reflecting both its mass being similar to the planet Saturn in our own Solar System and its proximity to its parent star. This study found that the two planets, despite having a similar mass, are profoundly different in many ways. Not only is WASP-39b not known to have a ring system, it also has a puffy atmosphere that is free of high-altitude clouds. This characteristic allowed Hubble to peer deep into its atmosphere.

By dissecting starlight filtering through the planet’s atmosphere [2] the team found clear evidence for atmospheric water vapour. In fact, WASP-39b has three times as much water as Saturn does. Although the researchers had predicted they would see water vapour, they were surprised by the amount that they found. This surprise, combined with the water abundance allowed to infer the presence of large amount of heavier elements in the atmosphere. This in turn suggests that the planet was bombarded by a lot of icy material which gathered in its atmosphere. This kind of bombardment would only be possible if WASP-39b formed much further away from its host star than it is right now.

“WASP-39b shows exoplanets are full of surprises and can have very different compositions than those of our Solar System,” says co-author David Sing from the University of Exeter, UK.

The analysis of the atmospheric composition and the current position of the planet indicate that WASP-39b most likely underwent an interesting inward migration, making an epic journey across its planetary system. “Exoplanets are showing us that planet formation is more complicated and more confusing than we thought it was. And that’s fantastic!”, adds Wakeford.

Having made its incredible inward journey WASP-39b is now eight times closer to its parent star, WASP-39, than Mercury is to the Sun and it takes only four days to complete an orbit. The planet is also tidally locked, meaning it always shows the same side to its star. Wakeford and her team measured the temperature of WASP-39b to be a scorching 750 degrees Celsius. Although only one side of the planet faces its parent star, powerful winds transport heat from the bright side around the planet, keeping the dark side almost as hot.

“Hopefully this diversity we see in exoplanets will help us figure out all the different ways a planet can form and evolve,” explains David Sing.

Looking ahead, the team wants to use the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope — scheduled to launch in 2019 — to capture an even more complete spectrum of the atmosphere of WASP-39b. James Webb will be able to collect data about the planet’s atmospheric carbon, which absorbs light of longer wavelengths than Hubble can see [3]. Wakeford concludes: “By calculating the amount of carbon and oxygen in the atmosphere, we can learn even more about where and how this planet formed.”</s>NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has found an exoplanet 700 light-years from Earth with three times as much water as Saturn, indicating that it is a hot immigrant body that can reveal the origin of the planets.

Called WASP-39b, the scorching hot exoplanet has hot vapor and inflated atmosphere suggesting that the planet was bombarded with metal-rich ice during its origin. Its atmospheric temperature is in the range of 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit. Positioned 20 times closer to its star than Earth is to the Sun, it is tidally locked, meaning it always shows the same face to its star the way our moon is to Earth.

Its dayside temperature keeps powerful winds transport heat from the dayside to nightside as well and keep it permanently hot. "WASP-39b formed beyond the snow line in the planet-forming disk of the host star," says NASA's lead scientist Hannah Wakeford. "Exoplanets are showing us that planet formation is more complicated and more confusing than we thought it was."

Though researchers were not surprised to find water, they were startled by how much they found, which suggests that the planet formed farther out from the star, where it was bombarded by huge amounts of icy material. This gives out that WASP-39b must have formed differently from the famously ringed Saturn in our solar system.

The most-detailed ever study of the exoplanet was made possible when Hubble findings were studied in combination with the findings from other telescopes. Much like detectives who study fingerprints to identify the culprit, they used NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes to find the "fingerprints" of water in the atmosphere of a hot and bloated exoplanet.

Located in the constellation Virgo, WASP-39b orbits a quiet, Sun-like star, called WASP-39. Its mass is similar to our own Saturn but it clearly lacks rings. It was located so close to its star that it just takes four days to complete a revolution. What makes the planet unique is that it is an alen planet that might have gate-crashed into the current solar system, said scientists who were upbeat about their new findings.

Wakeford is gearing up for the next NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, to be launched in 2019, - to get an even more complete spectrum of the exoplanet, including the planet's atmospheric carbon, which absorbs light at longer infrared wavelengths than Hubble can see. The amount of carbon and oxygen in the atmosphere provides clues for scientists to learn more about where and how this planet formed.</s>Washington: Astronomers have detected a large amount of water in the atmosphere of a hot, Saturn-mass exoplanet some 700 light-years away.

The planet, known as WASP-39b, has three times as much water as Saturn does, NASA said on Thursday.

Though no planet like this resides in our solar system, WASP-39b can provide new insights into how and where planets form around a star, the researchers said.

Located in the constellation Virgo, WASP-39b whips around a quiet, Sun-like star, called WASP-39, once every four days.

The exoplanet is currently positioned more than 20 times closer to its star than Earth is to the Sun. It is tidally locked, meaning it always shows the same face to its star.

Using NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, the astronomers analysed the atmosphere of the "hot Saturn" exoplanet and they captured the most complete spectrum of an exoplanet's atmosphere possible with present-day technology.

By dissecting starlight filtering through the planet's atmosphere into its component colours, the team found clear evidence for water vapour.

Although the researchers predicted they would see water, they were surprised by how much water they found -- three times as much water as Saturn has.

This suggests that the planet formed farther out from the star, where it was bombarded by icy material.

"We need to look outward so we can understand our own solar system," explained lead investigator Hannah Wakeford of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, and the University of Exeter in Devon, Britain.

"WASP-39b shows exoplanets can have much different compositions than those of our solar system," said co-author David Sing of the University of Exeter in Devon.

"Hopefully this diversity we see in exoplanets will give us clues in figuring out all the different ways a planet can form and evolve," Sing said.

The day-side temperature of WASP-39b is a scorching 776.7 degrees Celsius. Powerful winds transport heat from the day-side around the planet, keeping the permanent night-side almost as hot, according to the researchers.</s>Just 700 light years away from Earth lies an exoplanet known as WASP-39b. Scientists at Nasa have just made that surprising discovery that this exoplanet has an immense amount of water. The exoplanet has been classified as a "hot Saturn" because it has a mass equal to that of the gas giant and its proximity to its host star is also similar to that of Saturn's proximity with our sun.

Researchers were surprised to find that the alien world contains a lot of water — almost three times the water found on Saturn. However, unlike the solar system gas giant, WASP-39b does not have a ring system. It also has a "puffy" atmosphere, free of clouds, which allowed the Hubble telescope to peer into its atmosphere.

The immense amount of water found in WASP-39b led scientists to assume that the exoplanet may have formed differently than others. According to Nasa, the large amount of water indicates that the exoplanet likely formed far away from its host star, where it was bombarded with icy material.

Researchers also believe that the exoplanet likely travelled inward across its planetary system, likely knocking off other planetary objects on its way, to reach its current location. Researchers believe that WASP-39b's evolution could help us better understand the history of our own solar system planets.

"We need to look outward so we can understand our own solar system," Hannah Wakeford, lead investigator of the Space Telescope Science Institute and the University of Exeter, said in a statement.

The researchers dissected starlight filtering through the exoplanet's atmosphere into component colours, which in turn allowed them to discover evidence of the presence of water. The water was detected as vapour in the atmosphere. The scientists also made use of the Hubble and Spitzer telescopes to develop a detailed spectrum of the WASP-39b's atmosphere — the most complete spectrum of an exoplanet captured till date.

"This spectrum is thus far the most beautiful example we have of what a clear exoplanet atmosphere looks like," said Wakeford.

Scientists also discovered that the exoplanet completes one orbit around its host star in four days. WASP-39b is 20 times closer to its host star than the Earth is to the Sun. In other words, the exoplanet's inward journey has resulted in WASP-39b being eight times closer to its star than the Mercury is to the sun.

The alien world is also tidally locked, which means that it shows only one side to its star. Researchers estimate that the planet's temperature is over a scorching 760C. Even the planet's permanent night-side is incredibly hot, thanks to powerful winds that transfer the heat from the day-side of the exoplanet.

"WASP-39b shows exoplanets can have much different compositions than those of our solar system," David Sing of the University of Exeter, a co-author of the new study, said in a statement. "Hopefully this diversity we see in exoplanets will give us clues in figuring out all the different ways a planet can form and evolve."

Once the James Webb Telescope, which is scheduled to launch in 2019, is up and running, Wakeford hopes to use the massive telescope to capture an even more detailed spectrum of WASP-39b. This will likely help researchers gain an even better understanding of how and where this planet was formed.

"Exoplanets are showing us that planet formation is more complicated and more confusing than we thought it was," Wakeford added. And that's fantastic!"</s>NASA’s Hubble spacecraft has discovered signs of a large amount of water in an exoplanet some 700 light-years away. The planet is unlike others in the solar system and can provide crucial insights into the origin of other worlds.

The agency’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes found the “fingerprints” of water in the atmosphere of a hot, bloated, Saturn-like exoplanet known as WASP-39b. As it turned out, the planet has three times as much water as Saturn, which could provide groundbreaking insights into how and where planets form around a star, according to researchers.

While the components of WASP-39b’s atmosphere are similar in mass to that of Saturn, the planets differ in many other ways, mostly because of the vapor detected in the exoplanet’s atmosphere.

NASA says the discovery highlights the complexity of other worlds and “underscores the fact that the more astronomers learn..the more there is to learn about their origins.”

“This latest observation is a significant step toward characterizing these worlds,” NASA said.

While researchers were expecting to find water in WASP-39b’s atmosphere, the team was surprised by just how much they discovered. In fact, the exoplanet has so much water that astronomers believe it must have been formed in a different way than its neighbors.

The amount of water suggests that WASP-39b has a unique evolutionary history and likely developed far away from its star, where it was “bombarded by a lot of icy material" throughout its epic journey across its planetary system.

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"We need to look outward so we can understand our own solar system,"explained lead investigator Hannah Wakeford of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, and the University of Exeter in Devon, United Kingdom. "But exoplanets are showing us that planet formation is more complicated and more confusing than we thought it was. And that's fantastic!"

The combination of the Hubble and Spitzer telescopes provided the best possible analysis of WASP-39b’s atmosphere with present-day technology. "This spectrum is thus far the most beautiful example we have of what a clear exoplanet atmosphere looks like," said Wakeford.</s>"WASP-39b shows exoplanets can have much different compositions than those of our solar system," said co-author David Sing of the University of Exeter in Devon, United Kingdom. "Hopefully this diversity we see in exoplanets will give us clues in figuring out all the different ways a planet can form and evolve."

Much like detectives study fingerprints to identify the culprit, scientists used NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes to find the "fingerprints" of water in the atmosphere of a hot, bloated, Saturn-mass exoplanet some 700 light-years away. And, they found a lot of water. In fact, the planet, known as WASP-39b, has three times as much water as Saturn does.

Though no planet like this resides in our solar system, WASP-39b can provide new insights into how and where planets form around a star, say researchers. This exoplanet is so unique, it underscores the fact that the more astronomers learn about the complexity of other worlds, the more there is to learn about their origins. This latest observation is a significant step toward characterizing these worlds.

Although the researchers predicted they'd see water, they were surprised by how much water they

found in this "hot Saturn." Because WASP-39b has so much more water than our famously ringed neighbor, it must have formed differently. The amount of water suggests that the planet actually developed far away from the star, where it was bombarded by a lot of icy material. WASP-39b likely had an interesting evolutionary history as it migrated in, taking an epic journey across its planetary system and perhaps obliterating planetary objects in its path.

"We need to look outward so we can understand our own solar system," explained lead investigator Hannah Wakeford of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, and the University of Exeter in Devon, United Kingdom. "But exoplanets are showing us that planet formation is more complicated and more confusing than we thought it was. And that's fantastic!"

Wakeford and her team were able to analyze the atmospheric components of this exoplanet, which is similar in mass to Saturn but profoundly different in many other ways. By dissecting starlight filtering through the planet's atmosphere into its component colors, the team found clear evidence for water. This water is detected as vapor in the atmosphere.

Using Hubble and Spitzer, the team has captured the most complete spectrum of an exoplanet's atmosphere possible with present-day technology. "This spectrum is thus far the most beautiful example we have of what a clear exoplanet atmosphere looks like," said Wakeford.

Located in the constellation Virgo, WASP-39b whips around a quiet, Sun-like star, called WASP-39, once every four days. The exoplanet is currently positioned more than 20 times closer to its star than Earth is to the Sun. It is tidally locked, meaning it always shows the same face to its star.

Its day-side temperature is a scorching 1,430 degrees Fahrenheit (776.7 degrees Celsius). Powerful winds transport heat from the day-side around the planet, keeping the permanent night-side almost as hot. Although it is called a "hot Saturn," WASP-39b is not known to have rings. Instead, is has a puffy atmosphere that is free of high-altitude clouds, allowing Wakeford and her team to peer down into its depths.

Looking ahead, Wakeford hopes to use the James Webb Space Telescope - scheduled to launch in 2019 - to get an even more complete spectrum of the exoplanet. Webb will be able to give information about the planet's atmospheric carbon, which absorbs light at longer, infrared wavelengths than Hubble can see. By understanding the amount of carbon and oxygen in the atmosphere, scientists can learn even more about where and how this planet formed.

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"Stop Saying That Dinosaurs Went Extinct. They Didn't"</s>Scientists have spotted a ‘surprising’ amount of water in the atmosphere around a massive planet far beyond our solar system.

The planet, known as WASP-39b, sits roughly 700 light-years away and is estimated to have three times more water in its vicinity than Saturn.

While scientists have previously drawn parallels between the two planets due to their similar masses, the extreme difference in water content suggests WASP-39b formed in a different way than our ringed neighbour.

WASP-39b is a scorching ‘hot Saturn’ exoplanet in the constellation Virgo.

It orbits a sun-like star once every four days, at a distance 20 times closer than Earth is to the sun.

And, on the day side, temperatures can reach 1,430 degrees Fahrenheit (776.7 degrees Celsius).

On the permanent night side, temperatures are nearly as hot due to powerful winds which transport heat around the planet.

While WASP-39b certainly wouldn’t make a nice place to live, the experts say its surprising atmosphere can help improve our understanding of the planets and processes in our own solar system.

Scientists initially expected to find water when analyzing the fingerprints of different compounds in the exoplanet’s atmosphere.

But, they weren’t prepared to find so much.

Based on the high amount of water, the experts say WASP-39b likely formed far away from its star and was bombarded with icy material.

Then, it migrated closer in an ‘epic journey’ across its system.

‘We need to look outward so we can understand our own solar system,’ said lead investigator Hannah Wakeford of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, and the University of Exeter in Devon, UK.

‘But exoplanets are showing us that planet formation is more complicated and more confusing than we thought it was. And that’s fantastic.’

Though WASP-39b is compared to Saturn, the two planets are very different in a number of ways – the most obvious being that WASP-39b does not have rings.

And, its atmosphere is a ‘puffy’ environment free of high-altitude clouds, giving scientists an unprecedented look at the region around an exoplanet.

The team used data from the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes to find the ‘fingerprints’ of water and other molecules.

With this, they’ve captured what they say is the most complete spectrum of an exoplanet’s atmosphere yet.

‘This spectrum is thus far the most beautiful example we have of what a clear exoplanet atmosphere looks like,’ Wakeford said.

Using the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, the researchers say they could soon obtain an even more detailed look at the exoplanet’s atmosphere, revealing insight on its atmospheric carbon.

Carbon absorbs light at longer, infrared wavelengths than Hubble is able to detect, according to the team.

With further studies on its carbon and oxygen concentrations, the scientists will be able to better understand how it formed.

‘WASP-39b shows exoplanets can have much different compositions than those of our solar system,’ said co-author David Ding of the University of Exeter in Devon.

‘Hopefully this diversity we see in exoplanets will give us clues in figuring out all the different ways a planet can form and evolve.’</s>Scientists at NASA recently used the Hubble and Spitzer telescopes to study the atmosphere of a Saturn-sized planet 700 light years away. What their spectrographic study found is that the planet, known as WASP-39b, has a ton of water in its atmosphere—three times the amount that Saturn has.

WASP-39b is part of the Virgo constellation. It sits 20 times closer to its star (named WASP-39) than Earth is to the sun. Unlike Earth, it doesn't rotate—only one side of the planet faces the star. That means there are extreme temperatures on WASP-39b, as high as 1,430 degrees Fahrenheit on the star-facing side.

The fact that WASP-39b has so much water means that it formed in a very different way than Saturn. NASA believes that the exoplanet probably formed far away from the star it orbits, where it picked up a lot of ice, and then migrated towards the star, until its ice melted into water vapor. According to the researchers, this means WASP-39b might have "obliterat[ed] planetary objects in its path".

Studying exoplanets is an important way to learn more about the universe. The more planets we study, the more we understand the amazing diversity of how they are formed.

“We need to look outward so we can understand our own solar system,” lead researcher Hannah Wakeford of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, and the University of Exeter in Devon, United Kingdom said in NASA's press release. “But exoplanets are showing us that planet formation is more complicated and more confusing than we thought it was. And that’s fantastic!”</s>Mars will be one of the first targets for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope as the orbiting observatory gathers more data to learn why the Red Planet lost so much water over its 4.5-billion-year history.

In the ancient past, Mars' surface likely hosted an ocean as deep as the Mediterranean Sea. As the planet's atmosphere thinned, however, most of the ocean was lost to space. The remainder of the water is locked in the Martian ice caps.

The Webb telescope — which NASA bills as a successor to the famed Hubble Space Telescope mdash; is expected to reach space in 2019. Mars will be visible to Webb in its first year of operations, between May and September 2020. [Webb Emerges from Giant Vacuum Chamber]

"Webb will return extremely interesting measurements of chemistry in the Martian atmosphere," Heidi Hammel, a planetary astronomer and executive vice president of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, D.C., said in a statement. "And most importantly, these Mars data will be immediately available to the planetary community to enable them to plan even more detailed Mars observations with Webb in future cycles."

Hammel will lead the telescope's observations of Mars under a Guaranteed Time Observation (GTO) project. GTO dedicates research time to scientists such as Hammel who played a key role in the telescope's development. Hammel was named an interdisciplinary scientist for the Webb project in 2003."A respectable ocean"

Webb's observations will follow years of research examining Martian water loss and its changing environment. NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission arrived at Mars in 2014 to examine the rate of atmospheric loss today. And in 2015, NASA released results from several telescopes that measured the atmospheric ratio of "normal" to "heavy" water molecules on Mars, in different seasons and locations.

Water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen, but hydrogen comes in different types, or isotopes. The heavier version of hydrogen — which has one proton and one neutron, rather than just a proton, in its nucleus — is called deuterium. The 2015 research suggests that deuterium, due to its heavier weight, remained on Mars even while the lighter hydrogen molecules were lost to space, according to a video NASA released in 2015.

Researchers suggested that pressure from charged particles in the solar wind blew the lighter hydrogen molecules out of Mars' atmosphere, because the planet has no global magnetic field to protect it. Additionally, the water molecules Mars had in its atmosphere likely broke apart under the sun's ultraviolet light.

Past infrared observations with the W. M. Keck Observatory, the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope showed that the Martian polar caps are highly enriched in deuterium, supporting the theory that deuterium remained behind. Mars' frozen water has a ratio of 1 hydrogen molecule to 400 deuterium molecules — about eight times greater than the ratio in Earth's oceans, which is 1 hydrogen molecule to 3,200 deuterium molecules, the 2015 research showed.

"Now we know that Mars water is much more enriched than terrestrial ocean water in the heavy form of water, the deuterated form," Michael Mumma, a senior scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said in the 2015 video. "Immediately that permits us to estimate the amount of water Mars has lost since it was young."

In the ancient past, Mumma added, Mars had an ocean that covered about 20 percent of the planet's surface area — "a respectable ocean," he said. The body of water was about 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) deep, on average. Today, only 13 percent of that ancient ocean remains, locked in the polar ice caps.

In separate observations, the Mars Curiosity rover, located at Gale Crater near the Martian equator, found that conditions were wet in that region for about 1.5 billion years. That period of time, Mumma said, "is already much longer than the period of time needed for life to develop on Earth." The infrared telescope observations suggested that "Mars must have been wet for a period even longer," he added. [Building the James Webb Space Telescope]

The Webb telescope, which is designed for infrared observations, will follow up on the normal-water and heavy-water observations performed by the other observatories, NASA officials said in the statement. It will watch the normal-water-to-heavy-water ratio during different seasons, and at different times and locations.

Webb's observations will let researchers refine the measurements of heavy water at Mars and see how much water moves in the Martian water cycle between the atmosphere, the soil (regolith) and the polar ice.

Webb will be located far from Mars, in an orbit about 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth at a gravitationally stable spot in space between Earth and the sun called a Lagrange point. Unlike an orbiter, its vantage point will let Webb image the entire disk of Mars at once.

Webb's observation has other benefits, too. Earth's atmosphere can interfere with observations, but Webb is far away. And it is designed to look at small differences in light wavelengths, NASA officials said in the statement.

However, observing Mars will still be a challenge. Engineers will need to calibrate Webb's observations of the Red Planet to make sure the amount of light reaching its sensitive instruments will not overwhelm the telescope.

"Webb is designed to be able to detect extremely faint and distant targets, but Mars is bright and close," Geronimo Villanueva, the Mars lead on the GTO project and a planetary scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center, said in the statement.

"Very importantly, observations of Mars will also test Webb's capabilities in tracking moving objects across the sky, which is of key importance when investigating our solar system," added Goddard research scientist Stefanie Milam, who is coordinating Webb's solar system program.
NASA astronomers use the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes in research implying that "hot Saturn" (high surface-atmosphere temperatures and gas giant-mass) exoplanet WASP-39b, located 700 light-years from Earth, has a large amount of water molecules in its atmosphere.