Explained: What is K2-18b? | Explained News, The Indian Express

Explained: What is K2-18b? | Explained News, The Indian Express

By Express News Service |New Delhi |Published: September 13, 2019 7:34:05 am

Explained: What is K2-18b?

A planet with temperatures that can potentially support life, now found to have water vapour too.

Artist’s impression of K2-18b and its host star. (M Kornmesser, ESA/Hubble, via NASA)

About 110 light years from Earth, an exoplanet eight times the mass of Earth orbits a star. Called K2-18b, it was discovered in 2015 by NASA’s Kepler spacecraft. It resides in a habitable zone — the region around a star in which liquid water could potentially pool on the surface of a rocky planet.