Scientists Have Found New Buttative Evidence That a Faraway World Orbiting Star May Be Be Home To Life.
A Cambridge Team Studying The Atmosphere is a Planet Called K2-18B has detected signs of Molecules What Earth Only Produced by Simple Organisms.
This is the second, and more promising, with the Time Chemicals Associated Life Have Deen Detected in the Planet’s Atmosphere by NASA’s James Webb Used Space Telescope (JWST).
But the Team and Independent Astronomers Stress That More Data Is Needed to Confirm These Results.
The Lead Researcher, Prof Nikku Madhusudhan, Told Me At His Lab At Cambridge University’s Institute of Astronomy That Hopes To Obtain The Clinching Evidence Soon.
“This is the Strongest Evidence Yet there is less than Life out there.
K2-18B is Two and a Half Times The Size Of Earth and Is Seven Hundred Trillion Miles Away from US.
Jwst Is So Powerful That It Can Analyze The Chemical Composition of The Planet’s Atmosphere From The Light That Threat Through The Small Red Sun It Orbits.
The Cambridge Group has found that the Atmosphere Seems to the Chemical signature of Least One of the One Of Two Molecules That Are Life: Dimethyl Sulphide (DMS) and DMDS). On Earth, These Gases Are Produced by Marine Phytoplankton and Bacteria.
Prof Madhusudhan Said He was a Surprised by How Much Gas Was Apparently During a Single Observation Window.
“The Amount We Estimate of This Gas In The Atmosphere Is Thousands Of Times Than What We Have On Earth,” He said.
“So, the Association With Life Is Real, Then Then Thing Planet Will Be Teeming With Life,” He Told Me.
Prof Madhusudhan Went Further: “If We Confirm That Is Life on K2-18B It Should Basically That Life Is Very Common in The Galaxy”.
There are even Lots of “IFS” and “BUTS” At this Stage, As Prof Madhusudhan’s Team Freely Admits.
Firstly, this latest detection is not at The Standard Required to Claim A Discovery.
For That, The Researchers Need to Be About 99.99999% Sure That That Their Results Are Reading and Not A Fluke Reading. In Scientific Jargon That is a Five Sigma Result.
These Latest Results Are Only Three Sigma, 99.7%. WHICH SOUNDS A Lot, But it is not enough to Convince The Scientific Community. But it is Much More than the One Sigma Result Of 68% The Team Obtained 18 months ago,WHICH WAS GREETED With Much Skepticism at The Time.
BUT EVEN IF THE CAMBRIDGE TEAM OBTAINS A FIVE SIGMA THAT LIFE IN THE PLANET, According to the Planet, According to the Planeter Heymans of Edinburgh University, Who is Independent of The Research Team.
“Even With That Certainty, There is the question of What is the Origin of this gas,” She Told BBC News.
“On Earth It Is Produced by the Ocean, But Even Make a Biological Loads of Strange Loads of Strange Things Loads What Don’t Know What Geological Activity Could Be Happening On This Planet That Might Produce The Molecules. “
That view is one with the Cambridge Team Agree; They Are Working With Other Groups to SEE IF and DMds Can Be Produced By Where-Living Means in The Lab.
Other Research Groups Have Put Forward Alternative, Lifeless, Explanations For The Date Obtained From K2-18B. There is a strong scientific debate not only about Whether DMS and DMDs even present but also the planet’s composition.
The Reason Many Researchers Infer That The Planet has a vast Liquid Ocean Is The Absence Of The Gas Amonia in K2-18B’s Atmosphere. Their Theory Is That The Ammonia Is Absorbed by A Vast Body of Water Below. But it could equally be explained by ocean of molten rock, which should be preclude Life, According to Prof Oliver Shorttle of Cambridge University.
“Everything We Know Planets Other Stars From The Tiny Amounts off The Glance Their Atmospheres. So it is an incredibly signal that we are having only on signs of Life, but everything Else.
“With K2-18B Part of the Scientific Debate Is Still About The Structure of The Planet,” He said.
Dr. Nicolas wogan at NASA’s Ames Research Center has Yet Another Interpretation of the Date. He Published Research Suggesting That K2-18B Is A Mini Gas Giant No Surface.
Both Thesse Alternative Interpretations Have Though Though Though Though That That That Though Though Though Jwst From The Date, Which Highlights The Strong Scientific Debate Surrounding K2-18B.
Prof Madhusudhan Acknowledges That One Is Still A Scientific Mountain To Climb to the Biggest One of the Biggest Chestions. But he believes He and His Team even on The Right Track.
“From Decades now, We May Look Back at This Point in Time and Recognise It When The Living Universe Came Within Reach,” He said.
“This Could be the tipping point, where the fundamental question of whether we’re alone in the Universe Is One We’re Capable Of An Answering.”
The Research has been published in the astrophysical journal letters.
