In the ongoing search for life beyond Earth, astronomers studying distant exoplanets are looking for a few key ingredients. For starters, a planet has to be close enough to its host star to receive sufficient heat, but far enough away that it’s not boiling hot. Second, and equally as important, is the presence of water, which, as far as we know, is vital to all life.
Most of the exoplanets scientists spot are either too hot or too cold, or are big balls of gas with no clear surface. K2-18b is different, and observations from the Hubble Space Telescope suggest that it’s not only at the right distance from its star, but it actually has water vapor in its atmosphere. This is huge.
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Hubble just detected water vapor around a distant exoplanet originally appeared on BGR.com on Wed, 11 Sep 2019 at 16:20:42 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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