Scientists discover water clouds outside the Solar system for the first time

This beautiful purple jewel is an artist rendition of W0855-a Jupiter-sized brown dwarf 7.3 light years from Earth. If the scientists who just published a new paper on its composition are right, it's the first object outside the solar system in which we have observed water clouds-an amazing discovery.

Jacqueline Faherty-the scientist who has lead the discovery at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C.-says she has "been obsessed with this object since its discovery" by Pennsylvania State University's astronomer Kevin Lehman:,

I've been obsessed with this object since its discovery. I went to battle at the telescope to try and get this detection. I wanted to put war paint under my eyes and wear a bandanna, because I knew this was not going to be an easy thing to do. At the telescope, I've never been so nervous. I've never wanted clear conditions so badly [...] I'm absolutely elated.

After there nights manning the 6.5-meter Magellan Baade telescope in Chile, the team managed to get 151 near-infrared images that finally resulted in the positive detection of water clouds. According to University of California, Santa Cruz, Jonathan Fortney, "it's tentative [but] "it's the first evidence for water clouds" outside Earth and Mars.