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Webb Discovers Methane, Carbon Dioxide in Atmosphere of K2-18B

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Re: Webb Discovers Methane, Carbon Dioxide in Atmosphere of K2-18B

#141

I picked up a random book in the science section of the city library today and opening it to a random page I started reading about an exciting "goldilocks" exoplanet discovery from 2015. Apparently this was the first exo-planet which had a positive spectroscopic identification of water in the atmosphere. It was a rocky world, 2 billion years old, 8 times Earth's size (mass?), on a 33 day orbit around a red dwarf. K-s…

Maybe you mixed up the dates slightly? K2-18b (name of the exo-planet) orbiting star K2-18 was discovered in 2015 but the water was not detected until 2019.

Sorry, didn't notice the reply in a timely way. I went back to the library, the book was "The Universe" by Andrew Cohen. It was indeed K2-18B, discovered by Kepler in 2015. It says that the water was discovered by Hubble later, so presumably 2019.

Re: Webb Discovers Methane, Carbon Dioxide in Atmosphere of K2-18B

#142

I picked up a random book in the science section of the city library today and opening it to a random page I started reading about an exciting "goldilocks" exoplanet discovery from 2015. Apparently this was the first exo-planet which had a positive spectroscopic identification of water in the atmosphere. It was a rocky world, 2 billion years old, 8 times Earth's size (mass?), on a 33 day orbit around a red dwarf. K-s…

I think this is supposedly a Hycean (ocean + hydrogen atmosphere) planet, rather than rocky. Unless those categories aren’t exclusive.

Sorry, didn't notice this in a timely way. I went back to the library to check, and indeed the planet I was reading about was K2-18b. The book at least says that K2-18b is a Super-Earth and will almost certainly have a molten rocky core.
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