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1/ A thread about the big exoplanet news that was announced today, which—to be perfectly honest—was challenging for me to parse and report.. theatlantic.com/science/archiv…
2/ Like other journos, I learned of this discovery through an embargoed press release about a new paper. Then things got weird. I found out that *another* team was working on the same discovery
3/ Team 2 was responsible for getting the Hubble observations in the first place, but the data was public, and Team 1 was beating them to getting published. Team 1, determined not to get scooped, posted their paper online last night before Team 2's embargo lifted this afternoon
4/ Researcher drama aside, making sense of the findings—and their significance—wasn't straightforward. Team 2 called the exoplanet a 'super Earth,' but astronomers not involved in the work told me the label was misleading, and, based on its properties, it's a 'mini Neptune'
5/ The researchers said the planet was in the habitable zone, but outside astronomers warned that that doesn't mean the planet *is* habitable
6/ because, oh yeah, according to the findings themselves, this planet probably doesn't have a surface, and those usually help with the whole life thing! (a detail that didn't make it into either Team 1 or 2's press releases)
7/ As for the water vapor that Hubble picked up in the exoplanet's atmosphere, two outside astronomers told me the detection was robust, while one said it was weak
8/ and everyone said the signal can't tell us anything about how much water there actually is, and anyway, just because they found water vapor in a temperate place where liquid water can exist *doesn't mean it does exist*
9/ Right now, I see articles that say different things, and a bunch of astronomers tweeting about their irritation with those stories, and people debating whether 'water vapor' is just 'water' if it's in an atmosphere, and I have a headache
10/ I don't know where I'm going with this thread. I would say that most scientists aren't trying to exaggerate their findings (even if press releases sometimes do) and most science journalists aren't trying to exaggerate, either
11/ These are complicated stories, and we're just trying to get them right.
sorry, that tweet should say "Team 2, determined not to get scooped, posted their paper online last night before Team 1's embargo lifted this afternoon.."
sorry, tweet #3 should say: “Team 2, determined not to get scooped, posted their paper online last night before Team 1’s embargo lifted this afternoon”
