Scientists find “still strong evidence” of life on the distant planet K2-18B: “This may be a turning point.”

Astronomers announced Thursday that they had detected the most promising “tips” of potential living on planets beyond our solar system, but other scientists expressed skepticism.

There was a heated debate in the scientific community about whether it was a planet or not. K2-18b124 light years away in the Leo constellations, it could be a sea world that can at least host microbial lifespan.

Using James Webbspace Telescopea team of British researchers has long been considered to be the indication of two chemicals in the Earth’s atmosphere as a “biosignature” that indicates extraterrestrial life.

On Earth, the chemicals are dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and dimethyl disulfide, produced only by life, and are primarily microscopic seaweeds called phytoplankton.

Researchers emphasized their attention, saying that more observations are needed to confirm these findings and that they have not published any conclusive findings.

However, the meaning could be enormous, according to Nikku Madhusudhan, an astrophysicist at the University of Cambridge and lead author of the study, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Madhusudhan told BBC News that he hopes to get evidence of clinching soon.

“This is the most powerful evidence, but maybe there’s life there,” he said. “It can be realistically said that we can see this signal within a year or two.”

However, outside experts pointed to conflicts over previous discoveries about foreigners, adding that these chemicals could have been created by unknown means that they had nothing to do with life.

“Goldilocks” zone

More than eight times the size of the Earth and 2.5 times the size of the K2-18B is rare among the roughly 6,000 ex factions discovered so far in that they orbit the stars in habitable or “Goldilock” zones.

This means that it’s not too hot or too cold to have liquid water. This is considered to be the most important ingredient in life.

Telescopes observe such distant skin layers as they intersect in front of stars, allowing astronomers to analyze how molecules block the flow of light in the atmosphere.

Webb Telescope 2023 Detected methane and carbon dioxide In the K2-18B atmosphere, such carbon-based molecules were first detected on deplanets in habitable zones.

It also detected weak signals in chemical DMs, leading astronomers to turn Webb into a planet a year ago. This time, we used the medium-red layer equipment to detect light of different wavelengths.

They have discovered much stronger signs of chemicals, far below the “Five Sigma” threshold of statistical significance, but scientists are hoping for such a discovery.

Even if the results are confirmed, it does not necessarily mean that the planet is home to life.

Last year, scientists discovered traces of DM on comets. This suggests that it can be produced in a non-organic way, and is probably not a “biosignature.”

However, the concentrations of chemicals observed in K2-18B appear to be thousands of times stronger than Earth’s levels, probably suggesting biological origin, Madhusudhan said.

“It’s as hot as hell”

K2-18B for a long time “Hycean Planet” – A world of oceans larger than Earth with hydrogen-rich atmospheres.

Like Earth, the planet of Hycean is covered in the ocean and has an atmosphere rich in hydrogen, an essential element of life. Many planets are bigger and hotter than Earth, 2.6 times the size of our planet, reaching atmospheric temperatures up to nearly 200 degrees Celsius, or 392 degrees Fahrenheit.

These planets are expected to be home to intellectual alien life, but there are tiny microbes similar to Earth’s ocean microbes billions of years ago.

“The Hycean planet opens a whole new pathway to finding life elsewhere,” Madhusudhan said before.

Several studies have questioned whether the currently proposed planet HYCEAN is too close to the star to support liquid water.

Raymond Pierre Hambard, professor of planetary physics at Oxford University, has conducted separate studies showing that K2-18B is too hot for life.

If the planet had water, it would be “hot like hell” and uninhabitable, he told AFP, adding that the lava sea is plausible.

Sarah Seeger, a professor of planetary science at MIT, sought patience and turned out to be another gas, referring to the previous claims of water vapor in the atmosphere of the K2-18B.

Madhusudhan estimated that Webb time would take another 16-24 hours to reach the five-sigma threshold that could occur in the coming years.

The current three-sigma is comparable to the probability of inverting a coin 10 times and getting the same result each time, explained Stephen Burgess, statistician at the University of Cambridge.

Five sigmas will get the results after 20 flips, and “we can be sure that this observation is not just a random discovery,” he said.

Beyond the K2-18B, Madhusudhan said that Webb and future telescopes can allow humanity to discover life faster than would be possible outside our home planet.

“This may be the turning point, where the fundamental question of whether we are in space is something we can answer,” he said.

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