Water found for first time on potentially habitable planet

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https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49648746

Source:  By Pallab Ghosh, BBC News.

Excerpt: Astronomers have for the first time discovered water in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting within the habitable zone of a distant star. The finding makes the world - which is called K2-18b - a plausible candidate in the search for alien life. ...Details were published in the scientific journal Nature Astronomy [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-019-0878-9]. ...K2-18b is 111 light-years - about 650 million million miles - from Earth, too far to send a probe. ...The team behind the discovery looked through the planets discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope between 2016 and 2017. The researchers determined some of the chemicals in their atmosphere by studying the changes to the starlight as the planets orbited their suns. The light filtered through the planets' atmospheres was subtly altered by the composition of the atmosphere.Only K2-18b revealed  the molecular signature of water, which is a vital ingredient for life on Earth. Computer modelling of the data suggested that up to 50% of its atmosphere could be water....

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