[SunkenCiv]

from PhysOrg:

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The solar-type star, HD 209458, and its 'hot Jupiter' planet in transit are shown in simulated violet light. As in this illustration, the star would appear as a limb-darkened purple disk if seen in near-ultraviolet and violet light. The newly detected dense, narrow layer of hot hydrogen atoms is represented by the dark absorbing ring around the opaque planetary disk. The bulk of hydrogen atoms in the upper atmosphere, which forms an extensive cloud and also a comet-like tail, is shown in white. The absorbing layer was drawn at twice the altitude and 10 times the thickness to be more easily visible in this illustration, the rest of which has been drawn to scale. (Art credit: Loretta McKibben, UA Lunar and Planetary Lab).

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[SunkenCiv]

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Image: Hubble Measures Atmospheric Structure of Extrasolar Planet HD 209458b

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[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

story about discovery is linked here:

Great Collection of SPACE Links
Hall of Science | 2-9-05 | Editorial Staff
Posted on 03/09/2005 5:15:07 PM EST by vannrox
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1359500/posts

also:

Too Close For Comfort: Hubble Discovers An Evaporating Planet
Science Daily | FR Post 3-15-03 | Editorial Staff
Posted on 03/14/2003 9:03:50 AM EST by vannrox
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/864636/posts

[SunkenCiv]

Wrong Group Credited with Being First in Recent Planet Discovery
by Robert Roy Britt
17 December 1999

[T]iming was on Greg Henry's side recently after he observed a decrease in light from a distant star on November 7, providing what seemed to be the first conclusive evidence that planets exist around other stars. A press release was issued within a week and Henry, an astronomer at Tennessee State University, became known as the first scientist to make a direct observation of an extrasolar planet... Another group of researchers, David Charbonneau and Tim Brown of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the National Center for Atmospheric Research... back in September... had already observed the dip in starlight from the planet passing in front of HD 209458. And their observations were more thorough, covering two full transits (on September 9th and 16th) of the planet across the disk of the star... HD 209458... 153 light-years away (roughly 1.4 million billion kilometers or 859,000 billion miles) in the constellation Pegasus.