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Astronomers Find Atmospheric Gas

This is a news story, published by Yahoo, that relates primarily to Kepler news.

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unexpected atmospheric gas

The Conversation

The Conversation

•

Science

Science

Scientists found a potential sign of life on a distant planet – an astronomer explains why many are still skeptical

The Conversation

Summary

Nutrition label

86% Informative

K2-18b is the first planet in the 18th planetary system found by the extended NASA Kepler mission, K2 .

It is about eight times more massive than Earth and has a volume that’s about 18 times larger.

Astronomers think it could either be a mini- Neptune or a rocky planet with no water but a massive hydrogen atmosphere, called a gas dwarf.

In a hycean world, water would be trapped in the deeper and warmer atmosphere.

New data show a stronger but still relatively weak signal that the team attributes to DMS or a very similar molecule.

Daniel Apai : Is life out there? Does this mean that scientists have found life on another world? Perhaps but we still cannot be sure. The new measurements may lead researchers toward a historic discovery, he says.

VR Score

89

Informative language

90

Neutral language

42

Article tone

semi-formal

Language

English

Language complexity

48

Offensive language

not offensive

Hate speech

not hateful

Attention-grabbing headline

not detected

Known propaganda techniques

not detected

Time-value

long-living

External references

30

https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=UVxRllsAAAAJ&hl=en https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/acf577 https://theconversation.com/to-search-for-alien-life-astronomers-will-look-for-clues-in-the-atmospheres-of-distant-planets-and-the-james-webb-space-telescope-just-proved-its-possible-to-do-so-184828 https://www.space.com/26087-gas-dwarf-alien-planets-aas224.html https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/mid-infrared-instrument-miri/https://www.astronomy.com/science/k2-18-b-could-have-dimethyl-sulfide-in-its-air-but-is-it-a-sign-of-life/https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/carbon-found-in-habitable-zone-exoplanet https://www.npr.org/2025/04/16/nx-s1-5364805/signs-life-alien-planet-biosignatures-exoplanet http://theconversation.com/why-do-astronomers-look-for-signs-of-life-on-other-planets-based-on-what-life-is-like-on-earth-227658?utm_source=Yahoo&utm_medium=related-link&utm_campaign=related-link0&utm_content=article-254900 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2019.0474 http://theconversation.com/us?utm_source=Yahoo&utm_medium=related-link&utm_campaign=related-link-0&utm_content=article-254900 http://theconversation.com/evolving-intelligent-life-took-billions-of-years-but-it-may-not-have-been-as-unlikely-as-many-scientists-predicted-249114?utm_source=Yahoo&utm_medium=related-link&utm_campaign=related-link1&utm_content=article-254900 https://earthsky.org/space/hycean-planets-exoplanets-habitability/https://theconversation.com/profiles/daniel-apai-555353?utm_source=Yahoo&utm_medium=related-link&utm_campaign=byline-link&utm_content=article-254900 https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/k2-18b-inhabited/https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/dimethyl-sulfide https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2021/06/Spectroscopy_with_Webb https://www.planetary.org/articles/the-skies-of-mini-neptunes https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/nircam/https://science.nasa.gov/mission/kepler/https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/adc1c8 https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/overview/K2-18b https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/abfd9c https://science.nasa.gov/exoplanet-catalog/k2-18-b/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2024/06/05/reconnaissance-of-potentially-habitable-worlds-with-nasas-webb/https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/http://theconversation.com/to-search-for-alien-life-astronomers-will-look-for-clues-in-the-atmospheres-of-distant-planets-and-the-james-webb-space-telescope-just-proved-its-possible-to-do-so-184828?utm_source=Yahoo&utm_medium=related-link&utm_campaign=related-link2&utm_content=article-254900 https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-arizona-959?utm_source=Yahoo&utm_medium=related-link&utm_campaign=byline-link&utm_content=article-254900 https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2SCIYjIAAAAJ&hl=en

Source diversity

18

scholar.google.co.uk doi.org theconversation.com www.space.com science.nasa.gov www.astronomy.com www.cam.ac.uk www.npr.org royalsocietypublishing.org earthsky.org bigthink.com www.sciencedirect.com www.esa.int www.planetary.org exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu creativecommons.org blogs.nasa.gov scholar.google.com

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