THE INDEPENDENT UK - It’s one of humanity’s oldest questions. Are we alone? Is there life elsewhere in our galaxy or the universe?
Scientists last week made a stunning announcement that they had found the “strongest evidence yet” of life beyond our solar system. A team of astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope said they had detected the chemical fingerprints of the compound dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide in the atmosphere of the exoplanet K2-18b.
On Earth, dimethyl sulfide is produced by microbial life, like phytoplankton that live in our oceans. Past observations of K2-18b had marked the first time carbon-based molecules were discovered in the atmosphere of an exoplanet in the habitable zone of its star. Scientists said that their findings indicate the possibility of a “hycean” world with an ocean “teeming with life.”
They also said that they needed more data.
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Edward Schwieterman, an astrobiologist at the University of California, Riverside, echoed that concern.
“The planetary context is what matters,” he told Nature. If the molecules really are in the planet’s atmosphere, he noted, “we have to brainstorm novel ways of producing a lot of it through abiotic means and evaluate those possibilities before accepting it as evidence for life.”