water vapor tagged posts

Sun: Scientists detect Water Vapour Emanating from Mars

Scientists detect water vapour emanating from Mars
The ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter studies water vapour and its components as it rises through the atmosphere and out into space. By looking specifically at the ratio of hydrogen to its heavier counterpart deuterium, the evolution of water loss over time can be traced. Credit: (C) ESA

Researchers said Wednesday they had observed water vapour escaping high up in the thin atmosphere of Mars, offering tantalising new clues as to whether the Red Planet could have once hosted life.

The traces of ancient valleys and river channels suggest liquid water once flowed across the surface of Mars. Today, the water is mostly locked up in the planet’s icecaps or buried underground.

But some of it is vaporising, in the form of hydrogen leaking from the atmosphere, according to the new r...

Read More

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...

Read More