An exoplanet in a star’s Goldilocks zone is confirmed to have water
Another tick in the box for habitability
SINCE ITS discovery by astronomers in 2015, the exoplanet K2-18b has elicited much excitement. Swirling around a red-dwarf star about 110 light-years away from Earth, the distant world sits in a so-called Goldilocks zone—not close enough to its host star to be too hot and not far enough away to be too cold—that could allow liquid water to flow across its surface. And liquid water is a crucial condition for any sort of remotely Earthlike life.
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Blue world”
Science & technology September 14th 2019
From the September 14th 2019 edition
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