I just can’t compute how this is possible. How can a telescope detect a gas, which isn’t even visible to the naked eye, on a planet that is an incomprehensible distance away.
[Source](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66786611)
In: 143
Because the sky is blue (on Earth).
Transparent materials, like air and water, aren’t perfect; they absorb and/or bend different wavelengths of light by different amounts. So if we can detect light that’s gone through the atmosphere of an exoplanet, we can compare that to light from the planets star to see how it’s been changed. If it bends/absorbs light in specific ways, we can tell that a specific gas is present.
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