{"id":3720,"date":"2020-06-03T09:00:13","date_gmt":"2020-06-03T13:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orbitalhub.com\/?p=3720"},"modified":"2020-05-31T10:45:07","modified_gmt":"2020-05-31T14:45:07","slug":"k2-18b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orbitalhub.com\/?p=3720","title":{"rendered":"K2-18b"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"float: left; padding-right: 30px;\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 5px;\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 5px;\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"580\" height=\"326\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4QxGeJxwvdc\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 5px;\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Wikipedia dicit: <\/p>\n<p>K2-18b was identified as part of the Kepler space telescope program, one of over 1,200 exoplanets discovered during the &#8220;Second Light&#8221; K2 mission. The discovery of K2-18b was made in 2015, orbiting a red dwarf star (now known as K2-18) with a stellar spectral type of M2.8 about 124 light-years (38 pc) from Earth. The planet was detected through variations in the star&#8217;s light curve caused by the transit of the planet in front of the star as seen from Earth. The planet was designated &#8220;K2-18b&#8221; as it was the eighteenth planet discovered during the K2 mission. The predicted relatively low contrast between the planet and its host star would make it easier to observe K2-18b&#8217;s atmosphere in the future. <\/p>\n<p>In 2017, data from the Spitzer Space Telescope confirmed that K2-18b orbits in the habitable zone around K2-18 with a 33-day period, short enough to allow for observations of multiple K2-18b orbital cycles and improving the statistical significance of the signal. This led to widespread interest in continued observations of K2-18b. <\/p>\n<p>Later studies on K2-18b using the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) and the Calar Alto high-Resolution search for M dwarfs with Exoearths with Near-infrared and optical Echelle Spectrographs (CARMENES) instruments also identified a likely second exoplanet, K2-18c, with an estimated mass of 5.62\u00b10.84 M\u2295 in a tighter, 9-day orbit, but this additional planet has not yet been confirmed, and may instead be due to stellar activity. <\/p>\n<p>Video credit: NASA Goddard <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 5px;\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>K2-18b, also known as EPIC 201912552 b, is an exoplanet orbiting the red dwarf K2-18, located 124 light-years (38 pc) away from Earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[391,111,463],"tags":[104,795,165],"class_list":["post-3720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy","category-space-telescopes","category-videos","tag-hst","tag-k2-18b","tag-kepler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orbitalhub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orbitalhub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orbitalhub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orbitalhub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orbitalhub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3720"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/orbitalhub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3721,"href":"https:\/\/orbitalhub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3720\/revisions\/3721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orbitalhub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orbitalhub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orbitalhub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}