Scientist Who Found First Signs of Life on K2-18b Using JWST Says There's "More DMS Than Earth"
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Published 2024-04-28
Last Friday April 26th, the Telescope once again turned towards the planet and observed it for several minutes to cross-check data from the first observation.
"If we do detect DMS it does put it basically at the top for potential signs of habitability," Dr. Madhusudhan said.
What’s interesting here is that scientists have not been able to prove that DMS can be produced in the absence of living beings.
The researchers are more than 50% confident that DMS is present in the planet's atmosphere as per the observations.
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All Comments (21)
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I notice the cost of JWST isn’t discussed anymore as it makes one astounding discovery after another
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What makes JWST so valuable is the ability to analyse atmospherics on other worlds, the chemistry of life. Seeing things millions of light years away is needed, and exciting for sure, but finding signs of life is the real goal.
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Came back last week from a three week cruise there. Very nice planet, interesting sites.
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DMS actually can be produced by abiotic processes, like interactions between water and sulfide minerals in ultraviolet light, or some volcanic activity.
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If K2-18 star was not a red dwarf, I would certainly believe they found something. I wouldn't like to be pessimistic but I can't be sure about life there, for the profound reasons: huge amounts of X-rays, close planetary orbit, tidally locked planet (no spin/no dynamo effect/no magnetic field) to its star. More no's than yes's, derived by logic, physics and planetary parameters for K2-18 b, rather than pessimism.
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Things are getting interesting! 😀
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The planet is a "mini-neptune", not a super-Earth, SORRY! 2.6 times the radius of Earth, discovered 2015 by the Kepler space telescope, during its K2 mission
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Absolutely fascinating love this ❤
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It’s obvious there is life in the universe besides us. It is more likely than not.
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Is there life out there? Absolutey, lots of it. But we still cannot see these exoplanets up close. We still go by "artist conceptions" pictures. All we can do is guess based on the conditions we seem to detect. Until we can see up close, we cannot make any determinations.
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Wait, does the fact that there's liquid water droplets on Wasp -76b mean the possibility of aerial microscopic life?
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We finally know we are not alone in the the universe if this is confirmed. What if earth was a water world in the distant past?
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Now, we need to work on finding a way to get there at warp speed or super warp speed
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If it is more habitable than Earth, wouldn't one think it is already occupied by indigenous lifeforms? We need to observe and study it secretly...non interference...even if that life is only microbial
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Wasps Glory is maybe a small hill sphere of EM mass which would be eventually turbulent hence its non constantly observable. The K2 1B chemistry is encouraging and maybe some comparative transitional Planum Temporale based on 4 dimentional spacetime. Organisms here are some thesis. The calculous of stars to planetary temperature should be in the spectrometry , the lights constant and possible relative angle of transit , L Point and the 3.5K C.The radius is in the dimming and its probably not oblong lol
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This is amazing! Can't wait to know more about it!
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More evidence has shown that life is unlikely on this planet. It's more likely of a Neptune planet
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To envoke occam's razor... Its more likely to be a gas giant 😑 Fingers crossed tho for an ocean world with a microbial biosphere 🤞🤞
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Man, that's awesome! Thank to Nikku and the Team! NASA too!
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"Detecting multiple unidentified life forms in the region"
