Recently, NASA's Spitzer Telescope found that there is no methane on a distant planet. Methane, which is present on Earth, is created by microbes that live in cows and, surprisingly, rice fields. It can also be found in dead stars, or "brown dwarfs." This planet, called GJ436b, is about the size of Neptune which not only makes it the smallest planet (it is 33 light years away) to be analyzed from such a distance but also lacks the one element that the planets in the solar system have: methane. Scientists expected to find methane because, according the principle investigator of the search, the type of planet that it is made the production of the chemical likely. Though scientists are thoroughly puzzled, they are glad to know what is going on in the atmosphere of planets in far away constellations.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-137&cid=release_2010-137
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