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WATER HAS BEEN discovered for the first time in the atmosphere of a planet with Earth-like temperatures that could support life as we know it.
Eight times the mass of Earth and twice as big, K2-18b orbits in its star’s “habitable zone” at a distance – neither too far nor too close – where water can exist in liquid form, scientists reported in the journal Nature Astronomy.
“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 said.
“We cannot assume that it has oceans on the surface but it is a real possibility.”
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.
Most exoplanets with atmospheres are giant balls of gas, and the handful of rocky planets for which data is available seem to have no atmosphere at all.
Even if they did, most Earth-like planets are too far from their stars to have liquid water or so close that any H2O has evaporated.
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.
Future space missions are expected to detect hundreds more in the coming decades.
“Finding water in a potentially habitable world other than Earth is incredibly exciting,” said lead-author Angelos Tsiaras, also from UCL.
“K2-18b is not ‘Earth 2.0′,” he said. “However, it brings us closer to answering the fundamental question: is the Earth unique?”
First detection of #water in the atmosphere of a planet within the habitable zone by @HUBBLE_space. Paving the way for future #exoplanet discoveries by the NASA/ESA/CSA #Webb and our #Ariel mission.
— ESA (@esa) September 11, 2019
Details: https://t.co/dUdv1X8nQG
(📷: Artist's impression of planet K2-18b) pic.twitter.com/FykPCmv558
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.
They found the unmistakable signature of water vapour. Exactly how much remains uncertain, but computer modelling suggested concentrations between 0.1 and 50%
By comparison, the percentage of water vapour in Earth’s atmosphere varies between 0.2% above the poles, and up to four% in the tropics.
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.
Further research will be able to determine the extent of cloud coverage and the percentage of water in the atmosphere.
With reporting from - © AFP 2019
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Big question, how far away is it, and when can we move there having wrecked the current one?
@Vocal Outrage: 110 light years away, pack your bags!
@Donaldo: and the warp drive
@Vocal Outrage: 186000 miles, How far light travels in one second. Multiply that by 60, then that by 60 again. Then that by 24, then that by 365. Then that by 111.
How fast is your rocket.
@vfagan: his rocket just needs to be fast enough to get him out of orbit, a propulsion drive now would come in handy, and a map…..
@vfagan: if aliens can visit us then the technology exists
@5hbeZh0I: maybe some day they will
At least when this planet dies, K2-18b is only a handy 111 light years away.
Basically, you have to travel at 670 million miles per hour, 24 hours a day for more than a century to get there.
@Peter Cavey: that’s nothing a red bull can sort out
@Peter Cavey: so you’re saying there’s a chance?
@Robc: lol
@Peter Cavey: Now is that one hundred years as experienced by someone on earth or travelling at that speed. Would it not be more like 12 years for the traveller
@Peter Cavey: I’ll drive
@Darren Byrne: one rotation around the sun. As in 1 Sol.
@Peter Cavey: sorry, ignore the but about 1 Sol
@Peter Cavey: You haven’t factored in the time it will take to slow down.
Does the new Bus Connect go there?
You see, We humans like to act the big man but really we’re only the tiniest bit of a speckle of space dust.
@Louis Jacob: Correction…. big man or woman!!
@barry sorensen: OK the abcdefghijklmnop crowd will be pissed off…
@barry sorensen:…big man (or woman. Just as good)…
@Dave Walsh: haha brilliant
@barry sorensen: acting the big woman is not an insult because women don’t behave like eejits in that way!
Don’t tell FF, FG or Labour. They will spend billions bringing in a new charging system.
@DaMoons:
@DaMoons: is there some kind of rule that every article, no matter what the subject, some lad has to make a comment saying “heheheh FFG will tax it heheheh”?
It’s absolutely hil-ar-ious at this stage.
@Pseud O’Nym: Thx. Thought nobody was seeing what FFG are doing. Your comment supports highlighting their efforts.
@Pseud O’Nym: Agreed. Those comments are sad
Off course there’s life out there. Civilizations have probably come and gone over billions of years. I just don’t think any life form will ever get to that level of intelligence to travel light year distances. Hopefully I’m wrong. How exciting would it be to finally know for sure.
@Paul Riordan: it is likely any world that advances enough will either create artificial intelligence or a way to store/mimic and organic intelligence. That is what will likely meet or be sent traveling
Imagine if they actually did find somewhere else like Earth! Do you think they would start sending people there to create a new world?
@Louise Tracey: would take a while though.. You’d be faster nipping into dunnes stores to pick up a few bits
@Louise Tracey: by the time we would get there this current would be gone and we would be dust so not likely.New type of space craft needed for this one
@Louise Tracey: ‘They’ are us !!
@Louise Tracey: They already have, and know life exists elsewhere, watch the documentary on Netflix about Area 51 and Bob LIzar.
While it’s in the habitable zone, a planet twice as big with 8 times the mass would have gravity of twice of that of the earth, not sure any of us would want to live there…
@COYBIG: The joints would never stand up to it.
@COYBIG: might help combat obesity
@COYBIG: the gravity on K2-18b is approximately 8 times that of Earth, not twice. A human weighing 80 kg here would weigh 640 kg on K2-18b. If there is even intelligent life on that planet, getting off the planet would be a monumental task for them.
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: as the radius of the planet is twice that of the earth would that not mean the gravity is only twice as much? Because the mass will be 8 times that of the earth, but divided by 2 squared the radius of earth?
@COYBIG: I’m not an astrophysicist, so I’m not entirely sure of the formulae used to calculate gravity. However, we are both wrong. Apparently, the gravity has yet to be calculated, according to both NASA and the Exoplanet catalogue. I have a feeling, though, that you may be closer to its gravity than I was.
@COYBIG: you are exactly right. Gravitational field strength is directly proportional to mass, inversely proportional to radius squared. 8/((2)^(2)) = 2
Humans are amazing, discovering other worlds like ours from this tiny speck of dust we call home. When we eventually figure out the quantum nature of time and gravity maybe we could go there for an ould visit.
@MaxDemons: or maybe we could spend our time, money, and intellect figuring out how to fix this place we made a mess of?
@barry sorensen: Agreed, but it’s still amazing.
That’s class. That habitable zone is called the Goldilocks zone as well, which always makes me smile.
@Greg Ward: Should be called the Baby Bear zone though…
Hopefully mankind never gets there, look at the state we have our own planet in.
So when is Trump going to buy it and build a wall around it and make aliens pay for it?
They complain about kids spending too much time staring at screens yet too much time and money is spent staring into space. Water doesn’t necessarily mean life.. The water there could contain Cryptosporidium.. And the old inhabitants (if there ever was) are probably dead. Get over it and forget what’s out there. If there is life out there let them waste money finding us..
@HearMeNow33: the money spent isn’t blasted in to space you know
@HearMeNow33: if the water contained cryptosporidium then that would be life wouldnt it
@HearMeNow33: moron
@Declan Edward: time is money
@Ole dan tucker: yeah but try take a Cryptosporidium parasite on a date
@Ro-your-nan: worse still would be a planet containing life in your form.
At 110 light years away youll be dead before you get there unless cryofreezing and resuscitation becomes a reality.
@Michael Collins: It’s only a few hours away at warp factor 6.
@Michael Collins: sure you’ve been to the Moon, it can’t be that much farther…
At the speed of the space shuttle it would take over 4 million years to travel the 660 trillion earth miles{110 light years) to reach it.
Welcome to the world of tomorrow.
I’ll go inhabit my own planet, with blackjack and hookers
@Gerard Martin: Actually, forget the planet….
They’ll have meters on it soon, fresh moon water..
More so called science.
“Men on the moon , and men spinning around the Earth, and there’s not no attention paid to earthly law and order no more”.
LV- 426 No thanks
It would take ages to get there and when we arrive it’s bleeden raining!
Why don’t we put the money and resources spent on space travel into saving the planet we have instead of looking for another one to ruin?? Plus after watching the movie Life I don’t want to know what’s out there!
111 Light years away, probably still a shorter commute than the current M7 to Dublin.
Great, now tell me exactly what we know about 20 miles below the earth crust. People are so gullible
Wormholes are the answer to time travel,
But the trick is picking the right one that will get you to where you want to go and being able to find your way back,
Earth is nothing more than a spec of dust to the billions of other planets that are out there.
Intelligent life has to exist,
Because we did not evolve on our own,
You just have to look at the way people behave on Saturday night for proof of that.
They are probably studying us like ants.
Maybe Elon musk plan SpaceX rocket send to planet like earth who know
@Brian Flavin: Well said
Sure we’d end up destroying that planet too
@Craig Clancy: that’s why we need more, a virus likes to spread
Sounds very speculative. Some open source algorithms analysed starlight from 650 trillion miles away and concluded there’s water vapour. I’d want bit more evidence before I’d bring my bucket and spade there.
Nobody would make it there alive unless we used generation ships, and the technology to sustain that is possibly centuries away, so don’t hold your breath lads
God knew what he was doing, putting civilisations far apart & denying them travel capability.
The universal designer is anything but stupid. People will be either extinct or civilized by the time they can get there.
The gravity on a planet that size would most likely kill us so we won’t be going there
God knew what he was doing, putting civilisations far apart & denying them travel capability.
God knew what he was doing, putting civilisations far apart & denying them travel capability.
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