This rainy exoplanet could be ripe for life
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/rainy-exoplanet-could-be-ripe-life Source: By Daniel Clery. Science Magazine. Excerpt: A nearby exoplanet with rainclouds in its atmosphere may have habitable conditions at its surface, researchers report today. The planet, dubbed K2-18b, is 124 light-years away and 2.6 times the radius of Earth. Last year, astronomers detected clouds of liquid water in the planet’s hydrogen-rich atmosphere, a first for such a small planet. [ https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/09/hints-rain-clouds-found-small-alien-world ] ...Now, a team of researchers in the United Kingdom describe in The Astrophysical Journal Letters how they calculated a range of possible atmospheres for the planet, based on its mass, size, and previously measured spectra of light that passed from K2-18b’s star through its atmosphere. (Molecules in the planet’s atmosphere absorb certain frequencies of light, so if the starlight passes through it on its way to Earth, the light’s spectru