#  No, the Exoplanet K2-18b Is Not Habitable 

 





September 23, 2019

 

 

 News outlets that said otherwise are just crying wolf—but they’re not the only ones at fault.

> The planet in question, K2-18b, orbits a star just 110 light-years away—right next door on cosmic scales. On Wednesday, it was widely reported as a "habitable world." The headlines were prompted by two new studies that detected water in the planet's atmosphere with the Hubble Space Telescope.
> 
>  Don't get me wrong, this is a very exciting result. K2-18b is the smallest planet where atmospheric features have been detected so far (a monumental technical achievement!), and provides a fascinating window into a planet very different than anything in the Solar System. It's also in the habitable zone of its host star, a region where liquid water could exist on an Earth-like planet.

 [https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/no-the-exoplanet-k2-1…](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/no-the-exoplanet-k2-18b-is-not-habitable/)



 

 

 



 

 

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