Hubble detects oxygen, carbon around distant planet

The Hubble Space Telescope has detected oxygen and carbon in the atmosphere of a distant planet, the first time these elements have been found around a world outside our solar system, scientists said on Monday.

Unlike Earth, the planet is a hot, gassy orb very close to its sun-like star, and the oxygen and carbon are not signs of any sort of life, Hubble scientists said in a statement.

Still, astronomers said Hubble's findings show that the chemical composition of atmospheres of planets many light-years away can be measured.

The planet - known as HD 209458b or Osiris - is orbiting a star 150 light-years from Earth. A light-year is about 10 trillion kilometres, the distance light travels in a year.

Osiris is only 6.92 million kilometres from its star - compared with Earth's 150 million kilometres from the sun - and whips around in an orbit of less than four days.

It belongs to a class of planets called "hot Jupiters," whose upper atmosphere is so hot it boils hydrogen off into space.

Nasa announced last month that it would not send a previously scheduled servicing mission to Hubble, effectively consigning the orbiting telescope to a slow death.