DAILY MAIL
Scientists have made an exciting and potentially ground-breaking discovery in the search for alien life, after detecting signs of a gas produced only by living organisms on a distant water planet.
K2-18 b, which is more than eight times the size of Earth and 120 light-years away from us, sits within the habitable zone of its cool dwarf star in the Leo constellation.
It is thought to be a ‘Hycean’ world — a relatively new class of exoplanet possessing key ingredients for alien species because of their hydrogen-rich atmospheres and oceans of water.
But it is the presence of something else that has got astronomers even more excited.
A gas ‘uniquely associated with life’ when found on Earth has been discovered in the atmosphere of K2-18 b, which is known as a ‘super Earth’ because it is bigger than our planet but smaller than Neptune.
The compound dimethyl sulphide (DMS) – a complex molecule made up of carbon, hydrogen and sulphur atoms – was detected alongside two carbon-carrying gases, leaving researchers feeling a ‘a mix of shock and excitement and disbelief’.
‘On Earth, this is only produced by life,’ NASA said.
‘The bulk of the DMS in Earth’s atmosphere is emitted from phytoplankton in marine environments.’
Despite the excitement, scientists have stressed that more observations by the James Webb Space Telescope will be needed to confirm the presence of DMS.
If the discovery is validated it would make K2-18b among the most likely worlds where alien life could exist, alongside the likes of Mars and the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn in our own solar system.
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