Posted on 04/17/2025 9:38:23 AM PDT by Red Badger
Scientists may be getting closer than ever to answering the question of whether we are alone in the universe.
According to The New York Times, a team of astronomers now claims to have found the strongest indication yet for extraterrestrial life.
The location in question is a giant planet known as K2-18b, which orbits a star 120 light-years away.
Repeated analyses of the planet’s atmosphere have found a high concentration of a molecule that, on Earth, is produced exclusively by living organisms like marine algae.
“It is in no one’s interest to claim prematurely that we have detected life,” said Nikku Madhusudhan, an astronomer at the University of Cambridge whose team has researched K2-18b, at a news conference on Tuesday.
However, his team of researchers believes the best explanation for their findings is that K2-18b is covered with a warm ocean, brimming with life.
“This is a revolutionary moment,” he continued. “It’s the first time humanity has seen potential biosignatures on a habitable planet.”
The findings were published Wednesday in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
While other scientists described the study as an exciting and intriguing starting point for understanding K2-18b, they cautioned against jumping to conclusions.
“It’s not nothing,” said Stephen Schmidt, a planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University.
“It’s a hint,” he added. “But we cannot conclude it’s habitable yet.”
Over the years, scientists have explored the possibility of life beyond Earth by studying planets and moons in our solar system—like Mars and Europa—for signs of water or conditions that could support life.
Space probes, rovers, and telescopes have all played a role in gathering this data.
Beyond our solar system, astronomers have discovered thousands of exoplanets, some in the “habitable zone” where liquid water might exist.
This involves analyzing these planets’ atmospheres for gases like oxygen or methane, substances typically produced by living organisms on Earth.
Meanwhile, new technologies like the James Webb Space Telescope now allow deeper, more precise searches for chemical signs of biology.
The search continues — but this could be the closest humanity has ever come.
That’s two hops, one skip and one jump...............
They are laughing at us..............
BUILD THAT WALL!
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A federal judge has ordered the Trump Administration to bring all that ‘life’ here as soon as possible or face contempt charges................
A federal judge has ordered the Trump Administration to bring all that ‘life’ here as soon as possible or face contempt charges................
Beacuse we are as yet too ignorant to know that the suspect molecules can under the right conditions be produced by causes other than bilogical life processes.
If there is life everywhere in the universe, we will have to be selective and just focus on planets that conceivably might have chocolate.
True.
Last year news. Dimethyl sulfide already detected on lifeless comets. Both dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide can be synthesized abiotically.
NY Times and Gateway Pundit late to the info.
If one can assume the abiotic origin of life, one can certainly assume the existence of the abiotic formation of other chemicals.
The Internet is becoming a posting ground for pure speculation. With repeating units masquerading as news sources. Engarde.
120 LIGHT YEARS AWAY.
At Voyager 1 speeds (38,000 mph), that’s 17,000 years to travel 1 light year.
120 x 17,000 = 2,040,000 YEARS to travel there.
The only benefit to any of this is the arithmetic to show how pointless these exercises are to “find life” elsewhere.
Except perhaps keeping some super-smart people from doing some other field, like creating gain-of-function viruses.
That works, carry on all.
I think there is a high probability of other life in the universe.
But the huge distances involved create such huge costs and such huge physical risks, I think it is very rare that unique life forms ever encounter each other.
yours: “They are laughing at us..............”
mine: YES, Earthlings’ various inane antics must indeed be very entertaining to ET’s and they can enjoy it since they are safely far, far away
sort of like watching 3 Stooges movies (but with lots more blood and gore added).. over the internet
120 light years away and they want us to believe they can tell the molecular makeup of the atmosphere there. I can’t believe there are people dumb enough to believe that junk. Seriously…. Where do all the morons come from.
Ivy League Skoolze...............
They’ve probably been looking at us for a long time.
"No one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space. No one could have dreamed that we were being scrutinized, as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. Few men even considered the possibility of life on other planets. And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely they drew their plans against us…”
Richard Burton - "Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds"
“A warm ocean teaming with sustaining life. And the real bargain is how much closer this place is than the standard “Andromeda galaxy” is 2.537 million light years from Earth, give or take a few AU.
Leap year = Global Warming...!! HA HA That warm comfy ocean just became inhospitable.
:^)
Thanks for the quote, but with things the way they are today, “minds superior to ours” would do well to stay away, for their own safety.
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