BREAKING!! water found on alien planet in a scientific first!! dwarf star K2-18, 110 light-years from Earth!!!

wow!!!

With data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, water vapour has been detected in the atmosphere of a super-Earth within the habitable zone.

The discovery was made by University College London (UCL) researchers in a world first. K2-18b, which is eight times the mass of Earth, is now the only planet orbiting a star outside the solar system, or exoplanet, known to have both water and temperatures that could support life.

The discovery, published today in Nature Astronomy, is the first successful atmospheric detection of an exoplanet orbiting in its star's habitable zone, at a distance where water can exist in liquid form.

The team used archive data from 2016 and 2017 captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and developed open-source algorithms to analyse the starlight filtered through K2-18b's atmosphere [1]. The results revealed the molecular signature of water vapour, also indicating the presence of hydrogen and helium in the planet's atmosphere.

The authors believe that other molecules, including nitrogen and methane, may be present but they remain undetectable with current observations. Further studies are required to estimate cloud coverage and the percentage of atmospheric water present.

The planet orbits the cool dwarf star K2-18, which is 110 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Leo. Given the high level of activity of its red dwarf star, K2-18b may be more hostile than Earth and is likely to be exposed to more radiation.

[link to spaceref.com]

Last Edited by Digital mix guy Spock on 09/12/2019 12:06 AM