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BALTIMORE (AP) - The Hubble Space Telescope has found methane in the atmosphere of a distant planet — the same planet where water was found last year.
Such discoveries could aid efforts to find life on planets outside our solar system, scientists said Wednesday.
The organic molecule was detected in the atmosphere of a Jupiter-sized planet that circles a star 63 light-years away in the constellation Vulpecula. The planet, HD 189733b, is too close to a nearby star to support life as we know it. But researchers said the observations show the astronomers' technique for detecting essential life ingredients can be used on cooler, potentially habitable Earth-sized planets.
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