Planet K2-18B and its host star artist’s impression
ESA/Hubble, M. Cornamer
Astronomers have claimed that the strongest evidence has been observed on the other planet so far. But other astronomers take caution until the findings cannot be verified by other groups and may be denied alternative, non-biological explanation.
“These are the first signs that we are looking at a foreign world that is probably settled,” Nikku Madhusudhan It was reported at a press conference at Cambridge University on 15 March.
Astronomers first discovered the exoplanet K2–18B in 2015, and soon established that it was a promising place to look for life. The 124 light year away from us, about eight times as the Earth and orbiting a star, the planet sits in the habitable area of its star, where liquid water can be present. Further comments, in 2019, found evidence of water vapor, due to which it was suggested that the planet can be covered in the oceans sitting under the hydrogen -rich environment, although not all astronomers agreed.
In 2023, Madhusudhan and his colleagues used equipment on the JMS Web Space Telescope (JWST), which found the atmosphere in the light light near the K2–18B, and again found evidence of carbon dioxide and methane along with evidence of water vapor evidence. But they also found a tentalizing signal of dimethyl sulfide (DMS), a molecule, which is manufactured only by living organisms on earth, mainly marine phytoplankton. The signs for DM were extremely weak, however, and many Astronomers argued We will need very strong evidence to be certain about the presence of the molecule.
Now, Madhusudhan and his colleagues have used a separate device from JWST, mid-end camera to inspect the K2–18B. They found a very strong indication for DMS, as well as a potentially related molecule called dymethyl dysulfide (DMD), which is also formed on earth only by life.
“What we are finding is an independent line of evidence in a separate wavelength range with a different tool of potential biological activity on the planet,” said Madhusudhan.
The team claims that the detection of DMS and DMD is at three-limm levels of statistical importance, which is equal to a 3-in-1000 possibility that a pattern of such data ends due to being a flower. In physics, the standard border is five sigma to accept something as a true discovery, which is equal to the 1 -in -3.5 million possibility that data is a chance.
Nicholas wogan The NASA AIIMS Research Center in California states that the evidence is more solid than the results of 2023, but it still needs to be verified by other groups. Once the data becomes public next week, other researchers may begin to confirm the findings, but it may take weeks or months due to difficulty in explaining JWST data. “It’s not just as you download data and you see what DMS is – this is a super complex process.”
Other scientists suspect more about findings. “These new JWS observations do not provide strong evidence that DMS or DMD K2-18B is present in the atmosphere,” Ryan McDonald At the University of Michigan. “We have a boy-waste-cried-volf situation for the K2-18B, where the last three-igma detections have completely disappeared, when under investigation closely under investigation. Any claims of life beyond Earth will have to be strictly investigated by other scientists, and unfortunately many previous thrilling claims for the K2-18B have not been faced.”
Madhusudhan and his team estimate that 16 to 24 hours ahead of JWST can help him reach five -Igs levels, but the difficulty looking at the planet’s atmosphere means that they cannot guarantee it.
“The relative size of the atmosphere is very close to the thickness of an apple skin at the top of an apple than the size of the planet. That is what we are trying to measure,” Thomas Beatty At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which was not part of the study team. Vogan says that due to the amount of noise in the data, five sigma may be fundamentally impossible.
But if further comments can prove that this is a real discovery, it will be a “tremendous advance”, Beatty says. “Ignoring whether it is actually manufactured by life for a second, it is something that a decade ago, people said that there would be evidence for life in a planet’s atmosphere that may probably host it.”
Madhusudhan and his colleagues have calculated that the possible concentrations of DMS and DMDS on K2–18B seem to be thousands of times more than thousands of times more than thousands of times, thousand times more than concentrations in the Earth’s atmosphere. They say that it can indicate a greater amount of biological activity than the Earth, if the signal proves to be correct, but to establish that the biological origin of chemicals will work more, they say.
“We have to be very careful,” said Madhushan. “At this stage, we cannot claim that, even though we find DMS and DMD, it is due to life. I should be very clear about it. But if you study so far, there is no system that can explain what we are looking without life.”
Vogan says that alternative mechanisms may take some time. “Nothing has been studied in this way. DMS in a hydrogen-rich environment, we don’t know a ton about it. A lot of work will be done.”
It is difficult to prove that it may not be a non-biological explanation, putting K2-18B in the category of a viable bioscnecular candidate for a long time, says, says, says, says Sara seagar At Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It can remain in that category for decades, as this question can never be completely resolved with limited data exoplanets,” she says.
Madhusudhan, however, says that this discovery is important whether it has come from life or not. “This is a revolutionary moment, fundamentally for me as an astronomer, but also for our species – that we are able to come to a single cellular life, billions of years ago, to an advanced technical civilization, which is capable of colleague through an environment of another planet and find proofs for really possible biological activity,” he said.
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