Water vapour discovered on K2-18 B

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Earth astronomers have discovered the existence water vapour in the atmosphere of on K2-18 B. a planet that orbits the red dwarf star of K2-18 in the circumstellar habitable zone.

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

https://www.universetoday.com/143372...might-be-rain/

https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/11/2...pler-exoplanet

[Voltron]

Ok. So, now we have to speculate:

What kind of god awful problem does this planet have that will bar us from living there? There's always some kind of alien beast or ancient curse or something.

[FredWolfLeonardo]

Originally Posted by Voltron

Ok. So, now we have to speculate:

What kind of god awful problem does this planet have that will bar us from living there? There's always some kind of alien beast or ancient curse or something.

Unfortunately, its a lot less exciting.

Apparently, traditional rockets would take atleast a million years to reach the it.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Voltron

What kind of god awful problem does this planet have that will bar us from living there?

Getting there is still the problem. Prolonged exposure to radiation is still unsolved, too.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Voltron

Ok. So, now we have to speculate:

What kind of god awful problem does this planet have that will bar us from living there? There's always some kind of alien beast or ancient curse or something.

In the last few years scinestists have been discovering a bunch of "Super Earths" who have similar geography to Earth and a lot of water. But the similarities are always about 87% or so and they turn out to be either a bit too hot or cold at the end. Plus, it's some sort of device that's travelling all over space o find Earth-like planets, but it can't tell you much more than that like if it actually has life living there at the moment.

Honestly, you need VERY specific conditions in a planet in order for life to pop up. And it's not like life popped up on Earth instantly It took ages. And considering how we're yet to find life outside of Earth, including something as basic as bacteria, it's pretty same to assume that we might just have been an accident. And that even if there's intelligent life out there... well there's an estimated amount of 100-200 billion galaxies in the OBSERVABLE UNIVERSE ALONE, and the milky Way alone contains about 100 BILLION planets, so this means there might be a few planets with intelligent life in our very own galaxy but they're too far away from us to know since our technology isn't good enough yet to reach them. We'd die trying to travel there, because liek FWl said:

Originally Posted by FredWolfLeonardo

Unfortunately, its a lot less exciting.

Apparently, traditional rockets would take atleast a million years to reach the it.

Yep. Also, not all life starts at the same time. Maybe we're the first planet in the entire universe with life or maybe other planets out there had life before we did in the past but it died due to asteroids, wars, etc.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

I read a lot of the scientific and astronomy mags, and we HAVE discovered potential evidence of past life on Mars, at least. So there's that. Buuut- so far it is only "proto-life", aka early forms of bacteria and such.

The interesting thing about life on exoplanets is that there are places on Earth where life exists, that shouldn't. Like in caves where there is no light, and no plants for O2-CO2 exchange. Or in parts of the oceans so deep that the pressure alone would kill most forms of life, and there is no light, it is cold, oxygen is low, etc. So life in these places uses other means to evolve, such as sulpher and methane vents, heat, etc. Most people's view of what constitutes the requirements for life is pretty narrow, up to and including temperature, atmospheric conditions, or even light. For all we know, water may simply be the main ingredient for life HERE, but not elsewhere.