Hubble and Webb Telescopes Shed Light on K2-18 b’s Habitable-Zone Atmosphere

Observations made by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have disclosed the existence of carbon-bearing molecules within the atmosphere of exoplanet K2-18 b, which is approximately 8.6 times the mass of Earth. For context, Neptune is approximately 20 times as massive as the Earth, so the mass of K2-18 b puts it within the “super-Earth” category, although the researchers responsible for the discovery refer to K2-18 b as a “sub-Neptune”. The detected molecules potentially include carbon dioxide and methane and…