LIVE SCIENCE - The trendiest planet in the universe right now is K2-18b, a potentially habitable world swirling around a small, red star in the constellation Leo. Located 124 light-years from Earth, the mysterious planet will never host human visitors — but a recent glimpse with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) hints that alien life may already thrive there in a vast, warm ocean.
In a University of Cambridge-led study published April 17, scientists using JWST reported the detection of possible signs of life in the alien planet's atmosphere, offering what a Cambridge statement called the "most promising" evidence yet of life beyond Earth. However, in the week since the study's publication, a growing number of scientists are already pushing back on this big claim.
"The statistical significance of the detection is marginal," Edward Schwieterman, an assistant professor of astrobiology at the University of California, Riverside who was not involved in the research, told Live Science in an email. "There are some reasons to be skeptical."