Astronomers Detect a Possible Signature of Life on a Distant Planet 56
Astronomers have detected what may be the strongest evidence yet of extraterrestrial life on K2-18b, a massive exoplanet orbiting a star 120 light-years from Earth. The research team, led by Cambridge astronomer Nikku Madhusudhan, published their findings today in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Using the James Webb Space Telescope, researchers found significant concentrations of dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide in K2-18b's atmosphere. On Earth, these sulfur compounds are exclusively produced by living organisms, particularly marine algae. "It is in no one's interest to claim prematurely that we have detected life," said Madhusudhan, though he described the findings as "a revolutionary moment" and "the first time humanity has seen potential biosignatures on a habitable planet."
The team detected the signals during two separate observations, with the second showing an even stronger signature. Their analysis suggests K2-18b may be a "Hycean" planet -- covered with warm oceans and wrapped in a hydrogen-rich atmosphere -- with concentrations of dimethyl sulfide thousands of times higher than Earth levels.
Other scientists remain cautious. Christopher Glein of the Southwest Research Institute suggested K2-18b could instead be "a massive hunk of rock with a magma ocean and a thick, scorching hydrogen atmosphere." Further observations with Webb and future NASA telescopes will be necessary to confirm whether K2-18b is truly habitable or inhabited, though planned budget cuts may impact follow-up research.
Further reading: Water Found On a Potentially Life-Friendly Alien Planet (2019).
Using the James Webb Space Telescope, researchers found significant concentrations of dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide in K2-18b's atmosphere. On Earth, these sulfur compounds are exclusively produced by living organisms, particularly marine algae. "It is in no one's interest to claim prematurely that we have detected life," said Madhusudhan, though he described the findings as "a revolutionary moment" and "the first time humanity has seen potential biosignatures on a habitable planet."
The team detected the signals during two separate observations, with the second showing an even stronger signature. Their analysis suggests K2-18b may be a "Hycean" planet -- covered with warm oceans and wrapped in a hydrogen-rich atmosphere -- with concentrations of dimethyl sulfide thousands of times higher than Earth levels.
Other scientists remain cautious. Christopher Glein of the Southwest Research Institute suggested K2-18b could instead be "a massive hunk of rock with a magma ocean and a thick, scorching hydrogen atmosphere." Further observations with Webb and future NASA telescopes will be necessary to confirm whether K2-18b is truly habitable or inhabited, though planned budget cuts may impact follow-up research.
Further reading: Water Found On a Potentially Life-Friendly Alien Planet (2019).
I hope it pans out! (Score:5, Insightful)
Even knowing we'll never go there, it would be comforting to know such a planet exists. (and if one exists, others probably do as well!)
Re:I hope it pans out! (Score:5, Funny)
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You worry about the taxes. The rest of us worry about the transport costs
Re: I hope it pans out! (Score:2)
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Yes, your friend should check it out, personally.
Re: I hope it pans out! (Score:3)
Re: I hope it pans out! (Score:1)
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And guess which alleged administration is slating in cuts to NASA's science budget that supports this sort of research. And the Maggots rejoiced because one of their pet peeves is research, unless it glorifies Dear Leader.
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As opposed to the other TDS (i.e. Trump Devotion Syndrome)?
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You people are angry and horny all the time and society must really find a cure for your mental illness.
You are wagging your finger in the wrong direction.
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Did somebody check if they have rare earth elements?
They don't have any rare earth elements; they have rare K2-18b elements there.
Hycean is an atrocious name (Score:2)
Did somebody check if they have rare earth elements?
They don't have any rare earth elements; they have rare K2-18b elements there.
As long as we are remarking upon scientific names, hycean is atrocious. A portmanteau from hy(drogen) and (o)cean, it manages to capture the roots of neither word. What I love about scientific nomenclature is that you can generally figure out what a name means if you know the base languages (usually Latin and Greek). Here, the etymological whimsy, or perhaps ignorance, makes that impossible.
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You lost me around "earth" or somewhere ...
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Well, rare earth ... most certainly. As those elements wont be from earth ... /dugs
Re:I hope it pans out! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I hope it pans out! (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a strong suspicion that life itself isn't that rare - but complex life may be (and intelligent life even more so).
For the majority of time that life has existed on Earth it was just single celled boring life. It was only about 600 million years ago when anything interesting started happening. Life itself seems to have emerged 3.5 to 4.1 billion years ago.
If it was simple life for that long before making the jump to complex life, to me that suggests that the jump was not guaranteed or inevitable - it happened by chance, but the planet only has about 800 million years of good habitability left. If the evolution to complex life had taken much longer it would have never even happened here.
Then again until we find other planets with a history of life its speculative. It could just be that complex life starts fast but Earth was a slow exception.
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I agree with your assessment.
There are several hard steps that made complex life possible on earth.
First there is photosynthesis that caused oxygen to increase in the atmosphere. A result of that was the Great Oxidation Event [asm.org].
That oxygen gave rise to aerobic metabolism, which is orders of magnitude more efficient than anaerobic metabolism (the same glucose molecule makes 32 ATP molecules in aerobic metabolism, vs only 2 in an anaerobic environment [numbers may be inaccurate, but ballpark]).
Then there is the
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Lynyrd Skynyrd taught us long ago that simple life is the best
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It's European research. One problem there is that the security at university of cambridge would send the doge broccoliheads away and sending an invasion force to capture britain for this would be quite expensive.
As for JWST, Europe contributed 15% for 15% observation time
Re:Waste (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly. I'd go a step further, fundamental research today is mostly without nationality. Our team has people from across the EU, a few US citizen, someone from Chile and a guy born in Peru who is now Japan-based.
The last thing we care about is where was your most recent passport issued, as there's more than enough passport nuisance at the airport anyway.
This too shall pass (Score:5, Informative)
One problem there is that the security at university of cambridge would send the doge broccoliheads away,
That's not how Cambridge really works - or at least not when I was there. If start trying to force stupid things through first you get ignored and then if you persist in your foolishness you'll get ridiculed and ignored. When you are an institute that has been around for 800 years, suviving the Black Death, absolute monarchs, the English civil war and two World Wars, while developing a lot of the science, technology and thinking that underlies the modern world and training many political, legal and scientific leaders some jumped up politician running a former colony halfway around the world is nothing to get too concerned about because this too shall pass... probably by tea time given current form.
Re:This too shall pass (Score:5, Funny)
I heard about a joke from Cambridge.
An American visitor was walking through the university and came upon an immaculate lawn. The gardener was there manicuring the edges. The American approached the gardener and asked the secret to creating such a masterpiece. The gardener replied that it was easy. You simply cut the grass and roll it flat, weekly, for 800 years.
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That reminds me of a Beatles joke.
During a press conference the Beatles were challenged about the idea that their haircuts might be "unamerican".
John Lennon pointed out that the Beatles weren't actually American.
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Mate we were literally responding to one of your MAGA buddies that was suggesting DOGE should defund this research.
That buddy of yours is the only one suggesting that DOGE cares about this, so pick it up with him if you have a problem with that.
Also nobody here said anything about 'repelling a doge invasion' except you.
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Where will DOGE get the money for the invasion?
From the $2 trillion dollars in savings they promised?
Sorry the $1 trillion dollars in savings they changed it to?
My mistake, the 0.1 trillion dollars that they now say they are hoping to save?
That won't even pay for one months interest on the debt.
Debt that Trump keeps piling on.
And that Trumps tariffs are increasing the interest rate on
Clown government all over.
Re: This too shall pass (Score:2)
Do you leftists even realize how you sound, wanking off
Projection
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That was basically the longest sentence I ever read.
And you are not even a native German language speaker.
Well, I could dig out "Bellum Gallicum" and perhaps find the longest sentence I might have read before ...
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It's European research.
And still a waste of time and money. I'm sorry I mentioned DOGE.
Re: Waste (Score:2)
Letting you keep your money is worse than wasting it on science. So more of this stuff please.
Is it better than Mars? (Score:1)
How long before Handsome Musk will claim he can send people there?
Re: Is it better than Mars? (Score:4, Informative)
I believe SpaceX could send someone to Mars this year. They would arrive as a corpse and with a catastrophic reentry velocity. But move fast and break stuff!
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"How long before Handsome Musk will claim he can send people there?"
First Trump has to repeal Einstein's laws of relativity so ships can travel faster than light.
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We'd help Musk send himself and buddies there, as long as it's one-way.
Huge Planet. Massive Gravity? (Score:1)
Prepare for the invasion of Herculean Oompah Loompahs . Judge me not by my size for my ally is gravity.
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I'm not saying it's aliens, but (Score:2)
We have Slashdotters for that.
STAR TREK 101 (Score:1)
In the beginning... (good always overpowered the evil of all man's sins...) LIFE is a complex term and media fecklessness allows hoaxy carny people to collect grants and funding by pretending it's simple. It's not.
STTOS aired from 1966 to 1969. In that series we "learned" all "alien life forms" (except for the Horta) were humanoid in appearance, had arms, legs, mouths, ears, used a spoken context-sensitive-grammar (CSG) and had the same thought patterns, ethics, and morals of humans (except for anyone wi