Large Exoplanet tagged posts

Large Exoplanet could have the Right Conditions for Life

Nikku Madhusudhan et al. ‘The interior and atmosphere of the habitable-zone exoplanet K2-18b.’ The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2020). DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ab7229 

Astronomers have found an exoplanet more than twice the size of Earth to be potentially habitable, opening the search for life to planets significantly larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune.

A team from the University of Cambridge used the mass, radius, and atmospheric data of the exoplanet K2-18b and determined that it’s possible for the planet to host liquid water at habitable conditions beneath its hydrogen-rich atmosphere. The results are reported in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The exoplanet K2-18b, 124 light-years away, is 2.6 times the radius and 8...

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