Signs of extraterrestrial life have been spotted on a distant planet. According to astronomers, they have detected a chemical compound “produced only by life” on Planet K2-18b, in the constellation Leo. The discovery made a year ago was studied on Friday with the help of the James Webb telescope, and the results will be known in a few months.
The planet K2-18b, originally discovered by the Kepler space observatory, is located in the habitable zone of the constellation Leo, is more than twice the size of Earth and 120 light years away. Researchers believe they detected dimethyl sulfide, a substance “only produced by life,” in the planet’s atmosphere last year, according to Science Times.
Initial observations by the Webb telescope suggested the presence of dimethyl sulfide (DMS). Most of the DMS in Earth’s atmosphere is released by marine phytoplankton, indicating that the planet’s biology may be similar to ours.
In reality, scientists have not been able to conceive of a natural geological or chemical process that could produce DMS in the absence of living things. According to Dr. Nikku Madhusudhan, an astronomer at the University of Cambridge, the discovery was unexpected. However, given that these were preliminary observations, he could only state with 50% certainty that DMS was found on K2-18b.
Madhusudhan is in charge of the investigation of planet K2-18b. He refers to it as a “Hycean” world, a name he recently coined to describe a rocky planet with water and oceans and a hydrogen-rich atmosphere. He described the discovery as a “very profound moment” because it lends credence to the idea that ocean water is overcoming a hydrogen-rich atmosphere.
“If we detect DMS [pe K2-18b]that basically puts it on the top for potential signs of habitation,” Madhusudhan said.
The James Webb Space Telescope observed the planet for hours on Friday (April 26) to validate the discovery. However, alien life and space enthusiasts have to wait a few months for the data to be verified and released.
Last year, astronomers discovered a new exoplanet that shows signs of life. The planet is about the size of Earth and is 31 light years away.
However, the limitations of current technology prevent the search for exoplanets or extrasolar planets, those beyond our Solar System. Although we have amazing technology, our current methods of finding exoplanets are much more efficient at finding large worlds than small ones.
To establish the existence of an exoplanet, the technology relies on indirect signs, such as the impact of the planet on its home star. The radial velocity method measures tiny changes in the wavelength of light as the exoplanet’s gravitational pull moves the star slightly. Instead, the transit method detects the extremely faint, regular dips in starlight as an exoplanet orbits between us and its star.
The first step in determining the habitability of a planet is where it sits in the so-called habitable zone. This kind of information about the nearby red dwarf star Wolf 1069, which has a mass 1.36 times that of Earth, was found by a group of German astronomers led by Diana Kossakowski of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy ( MPIA).
Kossakowski claims that after analyzing the Wolf 1069 data, they found that the signal was of small amplitude. It travels one-fifth the distance from Earth to the Sun in an orbit around the star every 15.6 days.
The radiation received by Wolf 1069b is about 65% of that received by Earth, even though it is 15 times closer to its star than Earth is to the Sun.
Publisher: MI
Tags: aliens K218b James Webb telescope pointed planet signs life detected
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