Scientists have hailed what they call the strongest signs yet of possible life beyond our solar system on a planet about 124 light-years from Earth.
Researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope detected the chemical fingerprints of gases, which suggest the distant planet K2-18 b may be “teeming” with microbial life.
“This is a transformational moment in the search for life beyond the solar system,” Nikku Madhusudhan, astrophysicist at Cambridge University and lead author of the study published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, said.
The two gases – dimethyl sulfide, or DMS, and dimethyl disulfide, or DMDS – involved in Webb’s observations of the planet are generated on Earth by living organisms, primarily microbial life such as algae.
Scientists stressed they are not announcing the discovery of actual living organisms but rather a possible biosignature – an indicator of a biological process – and that the findings should be viewed cautiously, with more observations needed.
K2-18 b is 8.6 times as massive as Earth and has a diameter about 2.6 times as large as our planet.
It orbits in the “habitable zone” – a distance where liquid water, a key ingredient for life, can exist on a planetary surface – around a red dwarf star smaller and less luminous than our sun, located about 124 light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo.
“The only scenario that currently explains all the data obtained so far from JWST (James Webb Space Telescope), including the past and present observations, is one where K2-18 b is a hycean world teeming with life,” Madhusudhan said.
“However, we need to be open and continue exploring other scenarios.”
In theory hycean worlds are covered by an ocean habitable by microorganisms and with a hydrogen-rich atmosphere (Photo: A. Smith, N. Madhusudhan/University of Cambridge/via Reuters)Madhusudhan noted that there are various efforts underway searching for signs of life in our solar system, including various claims of environments that might be conducive to life in places like Mars, Venus and various icy moons.
About 5,800 planets beyond our solar system, called exoplanets, have been discovered since the 1990s.
Scientists have hypothesized the existence of exoplanets called hycean worlds – covered by a liquid water ocean habitable by microorganisms and with a hydrogen-rich atmosphere.
Earlier observations by Webb, which was launched in 2021 and became operational in 2022, had identified methane and carbon dioxide in K2-18 b’s atmosphere, the first time that carbon-based molecules were discovered in the atmosphere of an exoplanet in a star’s habitable zone.
Madhusudhan said that with hycean worlds, if they exist, “we are talking about microbial life, possibly like what we see in the Earth’s oceans.”
Asked about possible multicellular organisms or even intelligent life, Madhusudhan said, “We won’t be able to answer this question at this stage. The baseline assumption is of simple microbial life.”
Other scientists have urged caution around the findings.
Christopher Glein, principal scientist at the Space Science Division of the Southwest Research Institute in Texas, told the Reuters news agency the latest data “was a valuable contribution to our understanding”.
“Yet, we must be very careful to test the data as thoroughly as possible. I look forward to seeing additional, independent work on the data analysis starting as soon as next week.”
Madhusudhan added that the findings represent “a big if” on whether the observations are due to life, and it is in “no one’s interest to claim prematurely that we have detected life.”
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