Astronomers who use the James Webb Space Telescope say that they have found the strongest evidence so far that life exists outside of our solar system.
Scientists from the University of Cambridge found signs of the gases dimethylsulfide (DMS) and/or dimethyldisulfide (DMDS) in the atmosphere of Exoplanet K2-18b. On earth, these gases are only produced by living organisms such as Phytoplankton, which indicates that K2-18B can also support life.
K2-18B is located near 124 light years. It is almost three times the size of the earth and lives in an area in the room in which the temperatures could enable liquid water. This has long made the exoplanet a top candidate for the search for humanity for extraterrestrial life.
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To get to their conclusions, the scientists used a technology known as transit spectroscopy.
When K2-18B transfers in front of his parent star, part of the star light flows through its atmosphere before reaching the earth. Various gases absorb certain colors or wavelengths of the star light, which can be absorbed by the instruments of James Webb.
By examining the “missing” light colors, the scientists were able to put together which gases are available in the atmosphere of the Exoplanet.
The new The results support existing ones Theories The K2-18b is a “Hycean Planet” – home too Huge oceans and a hydrogen -rich atmosphere.
“In view of everything we know about this planet, a hyceanic world with a sea that is bursting with life is the scenario that fits the data best that we have, ”said Professor Nikku Madhusudhan from the Cambridge Institute of Astronomy, which was guiding research.
Madhusudhan and his team Enter that an unknown chemical process can be the source of these gases. However, the observations achieved a “three -sigm” level of statistical significance, which means that they only appeared a probability of 0.3%. These are not the 0.00006%that have to be achieved for a scientific discovery that accepted classification – but it is still convincing evidence.
In 2023, the same team of Cambridge researchers found signs of methane and CO2 in the atmosphere of K2-18B with two different James WebB instrument Near infrared image and slantless spectrograph (niriss) and the near infrared spectrograph (nirspec). This was the first detection of carbon -based molecules on an exoplanet within the habitable zone.
During these first observations, the researchers also noticed weak signals, which may provide DMS. Fascinated by this option, the team carried out follow-up observations two years later, this time with the mid-infrared instrument (Miri).
“This is an independent evidence that uses a different instrument than before and another wavelength range in which the previous observations are not overlap,” said Madhusudhan. “The signal came strong and clear.”
The researchers estimate that 16 to 24 hours of follow -up time with JWST can advance the results beyond the threshold for a scientific discovery.
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