Hubble Finds Water Vapor On Distant Exoplanet

With data from the Hubble Space Telescope, water vapor has been detected in the atmosphere of an exoplanet within the habitable zone of its host star.

K2-18b, which is eight times the mass of Earth, is the only planet orbiting a star outside the solar system (or “exoplanet”) within the habitable zone.


Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Paul R. Morris (USRA): Lead Producer

Music credits: "Only Human" by Guillaume Bernard [SACEM]; Universal Production Music



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[TranceXZero]

Please send up the James Webb as soon as possible, I want to be fascinated.

[cheydinal]

It's weird how you can always see where a video is comin from just by looking at what part of the map they show in their "the earth from space" shot

[lookinginwonder]

We are living in an era where we could find we are not alone, We are so lucky to be born human in such a time.

Jason Roberts

[vidheshshukla]

What other ways could we use to travel in space? I have one in mind, we can track any asteroid coming near earth and send a space craft near its orbit and grapple hook to its surface and then travel. Can you suggest any more?

[HebaruSan]

Is there any possible configuration that could lead to a natural sunshade? E.g., a tidally locked double planet system permanently lined up with one body between the sun and the other body (just an example, I realize that specifically would not be stable)?

[mariadaluzmoutinho]

O Hubble ...O surpreendente e fascinante a vigiar e a desvendar o Universo mesmo o extra!! É aquela máquina ....

[pakde]

Given that it's taken this long just to find a planet with water in it's atmosphere, then yes I'd say Earth is very unique.

[RyanDOOM]

What can this mean, this can mean that there are extratriestal lifeforms.But How advance are they they could be more advanced than us or can be bacteria and stuff... If they are life on it, I think a better way to find life is to think outside the box; what if other lifeforms have different standereds of living.

[zxsf]

Problem with most water vapor planets is: There is a hard upper limit, how much water they could have. Earth has just 0, 023% of water by mass, if such planets have just 1% of water by mass, they covered in oceans hundreds of miles deep, which makes them pretty useless and uninhabitable, and there are way more such planets exist, than Earth-like (Earth-like is a desert planet with very small amount of water, actually, closer to Mars). In fact, Mars have much better habitability than such planets! (Because it has solid surface, and water/oxygen can be extracted from ice). K2-18b is way too big, and has a low probablity being an Earth-like analogue, most likely being useless water world. More gravity planet has -> less ocean depths are allowed, because ice forms under ocean from extreme pressure, and acts as a barrier between water and seabed, so that planet must have shallow oceans, because it has at least 1, 66G. Lightweight moons (Enceladus, Europa) and so on, support oceans up to 300+ miles deep, without that problem (because they have very low G), so water-moons around planets in stars' habitable zones are have a MUCH higher habitability!

[cookiebom]

Hello human beings, i am a "alien" from planet RR Caeli b as you like to call it.
i hope for further contact.

[Cybernaut]

What are we waiting for, let's go with what we need to be prepared?

[PSKResearch]

"K2-18b, which is eight times the mass of Earth, is the only planet orbiting a star outside the solar system (or “exoplanet”) within the habitable zone."
Not true, there's dozens of known exoplanets within the habitable zone of their stars. Who wrote that?

[FelipeKana]

Technically, even to consider the Earth "unique" should be frowned upon by scientists of all kinds. One of the mottos of modern science is that things aren't unique, that they pertain to patterns, and so we can look for those patterns (and not indulge ourselves in old geocentric or anthropocentric bias... at least we should not).
However, astronomers invented a new bias, "It's never aliens", and that forces them to always see Earth as unique, even when they shouldn't. I'm pretty sure we missed a few alien life signals already just because of this bias.

[devcoolkol]

Maybe we are the first species to come in this universe and other planets are still young and have only bacteria and single cell life.

[BlackWolf]

No life for sure. Planets too massive and too close to a violent parent star. Next!

[Sinaeb]

OwO, time to get these catgirls fanficts real

[buckyharris]

This slow, pretentious video is an embarrassment. I applaud the confirmation of water vapor in the planet's atmosphere, but its presence doesn't confer habitability. That's because K2-18 is nothing like Earth. As the video admits, it's a whopping 8 times the mass of Earth (about half the mass of Neptune). And its radius is 2.7 times Earth. That combination tells us that K2-18b has an extended hydrogen-rich atmosphere (like Neptune, not Earth), a crushing atmospheric pressure, and hellish temperatures at the surface (if it has a surface). This is not a potential abode of life. Even after the discovery of more than 4, 000 exoplanets, Earth remains unique.

[jamesonmoz]

seeing all this things makes me say there is a God and he is everlasting