College of Natural & Agricultural Sciences

COSMOS MAGAZINE: In 2023, an exoplanet made international headlines because James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations suggested that the planet has a “biosignature” – signs of gas in its atmosphere produced by “life.” A new study published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters pricks a hole in this hypothesis. K2-18b is a planet orbiting a star...

EARTH.COM - The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) represents a remarkable advancement in astronomical observation. In 2023, initial reports suggested that JWST had detected potential signs of life on the distant exoplanet K2-18b. Understandably, this news generated considerable excitement within the scientific community and among the general public. However, a recent study offers a more...

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC - When inspecting the cosmos for potentially habitable worlds, scientists have long looked for the color green. Green is the fundamental color of life on Earth, after all. But what if life on faraway planets wasn’t green at all? In fact, what if it were purple? Signatures of habitable worlds Astronomers look for...