Scientists discover water at planet outside our solar system that has temperatures suitable for life
A handout artist's impression released on September 11, 2019, by ESA/Hubble shows the K2-18b super-Earth, the only super-Earth exoplanet known to host both water and temperatures that could support life.
"This planet is the best candidate we have outside our solar system" in the search for signs of life, co-author Giovanna Tinetti, an astronomer at University College London, told AFP.Of the more than 4,000 exoplanets detected to date, this is the first known to combine a rocky surface and an atmosphere with water.
Discovered in 2015, K2-18b is one of hundreds of so-called "super-Earths" – planets with less than ten times the mass of ours – spotted by NASA's Kepler spacecraft. 'Is Earth unique?' Working with spectroscopic data captured in 2016 and 2017 by the Hubble Space Telescope, Tsiaras and his team used open-source algorithms to analyse the starlight filtered through K2-18b's atmosphere.
There was also evidence of hydrogen and helium as well. Nitrogen and methane may also be present but with current technology remain undetectable, the study said. "It is likely that this is the first of many discoveries of potentially habitable planets," said UCL astronomer Ingo Waldmann, also a co-author.
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