Featured Image Credit: Lev Savitskiy/NEMES LASZLO/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty Images
NASA has discovered a planet bigger than Earth within the ‘habitable zone’ in an incredible find.
Incredibly the planet is accompanied by gas which is ‘only produced by life’, according to the space agency.
The incredible find was made possible thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope, which was launched by NASA on an Ariane 5 rocket.
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The rocket took off from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, South America.
The telescope has been able to shed new light on the secrets of space and one particularly exciting discovery was a planet uncovered in 2023.
The planet in question is an exoplanet, which is one that exists outside of our solar system, and is known as K2-18 b.
It orbits around a red dwarf star which NASA has said is situated in a ‘habitable zone’.
And the planet is pretty big - in fact, it’s around 2.6 times the radius of Earth and 8.6 times the mass of our planet.
Since its discovery, NASA has found that the planet has a ‘presence of carbon-bearing molecules including methane and carbon dioxide’.
The discovery built on top of previous findings which suggested the planet could be a ‘Hycean exoplanet’ which is ‘one which has the potential to possess a hydrogen-rich atmosphere and a water ocean-covered surface’.
Well, NASA explained: “The abundance of methane and carbon dioxide, and shortage of ammonia, support the hypothesis that there may be a water ocean underneath a hydrogen-rich atmosphere in K2-18 b.
“These initial Webb observations also provided a possible detection of a molecule called dimethyl sulfide (DMS). On Earth, this is only produced by life. The bulk of the DMS in Earth’s atmosphere is emitted from phytoplankton in marine environments.”
However, NASA also notes the planet's large size could indicate it isn't habitable to life forms as the planet's ‘interior likely contains a large mantle of high-pressure ice’ or it's possible its ocean is ‘too hot to be habitable or liquid.’.
University of Cambridge astronomer Nikku Madhusudhan said: “Our findings underscore the importance of considering diverse habitable environments in the search for life elsewhere.
“Traditionally, the search for life on exoplanets has focused primarily on smaller rocky planets, but the larger Hycean worlds are significantly more conducive to atmospheric observations.”
On Friday (26 April), the Webb telescope fully turned its attention towards K2-18b in a bid to further investigate the signs of potential life, observing the planet for eight hours, The Times reported.
