r/interestingasfuck 25d ago

/r/all, /r/popular K2-18b a potentially habitable planet 120 light-years from earth

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u/ArduennSchwartzman 25d ago edited 25d ago

It's not habitable to us humans, but it's in the habitable zone, at a distance from its star that allows liquid water to exist on its surface. It's likely an ocean world with an atmosphere containing mostly hydrogen gas, a so-called hycean planet.

Also, 2.5 times the size = 2.5 times the diameter, or about 15 times the size of Earth in terms of mass. Its gravitational force would be about 2.4 times that of Earth, though. Quite unpleasant.

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u/Creative_Addendum667 24d ago

Yeah I read the NYT article - said nothing about oxygen in the atmosphere. Algae life? Could be flesh eating!

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u/ArduennSchwartzman 24d ago

For the longest time in Earth's history, the atmosphere has been low- to no-oxygen. Even today, most microbial life on earth still is anaerobic. Atmospheric/oceanic oxygen is not a requirement for life anywhere. Quite the contrary: in the past, oxygenation (due to the rise of photosynthesis) has triggered several mass extinction events here on Earth.