Astronomers have found the clearest evidence that life could exist beyond the solar system, from the atmosphere of a planet to 124 years of land of the earth, triggering a rare excitement, tensioned with caution, in global scientific.
Using the James Webb space telescope, researchers led by astronomers at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom have found chemical signatures of two compounds that are only produced by living creatures on earth.
“These are the first suggestions we are seeing of an alien world that is possible inhabited,” Nikku Madhusudhan, a professor of astronomy at Cambridge and principal researcher Beindy, told reporters in information about the media.
So where is the planet that the life of the host could possible, what evidence the scientists have found and there is a reason for skepticism?
Where did the scientists found this evidence?
The researchers were based on the data captured by the NASA James Webb telescope, which took to the outer space in 2022, and is around 1.5 million kilometers (930,000 miles) of the Earth, as the surveillance of humanity is attenuated.
They focused on a particular planet, K2-18B, because Alrerey showed promising signs as an extraterrestrial candidate body with conditions similar to those of the earth.
K2-18B is in a constellation called Leo, and is so far from the earth that a spacecraft would need to travel for 124 years at the speed of light to get there. Actually, it would take a lot, much longer since the laws of physics do not allow anything more than light to travel so fast.
The planet is 8.6 times heavier than the earth, and 2.6 times larger. Critically, it is found in what is known as the “golden gold zone” of its sun: that is the region around a star where the temperature of a planet could, in theory, support water in liquid form on the surface.
In 2023, Cambridge astronomers found methane and carbon dioxide in the planet’s atmosphere.
That was the first time that carbon -based molecules discovered the leg in the atmosphere of any planet in the habitable area of its sun, the distance of a sun where it is too hot, or too cold, and it is possible that life survives. The scientists said that a surface covered first by an ocean, and then an atmosphere rich in hydrogen, would explain the presence of carbon -based molecules. In a nutshell, it was possible that the planet could have water.
What have scientists found now?
Researchers have now found much more difficult evidence that suggests that the planet could not only have the conditions for the life of the reception, but, at least in theory, could organize life itself.
To explore the planets illuminated to the Earth years, scientists wait for them to pass in front of their suns. They study the light of the suns as it flows through the atmospheres of these planets, looking for clues.
This is how the equipment found timethylsulfuro traces (DMS) or dimethyl disulfide (DMDs), or both in the atmosphere or K2-18B.
On earth, these compounds are only produced by living beings, particularly microbes such as marine phytoplankton. In addition, what scientists found suggest that the concentration of these chemicals in the K2-18B atmosphere was thousands of times higher than on Earth.
“It was an incredible understanding to see the results arise and continue to be consistent through the extensive independent analysis and robustness tests,” said co -author Mans Holmberg, a researcher at the Institute of Space Telescope Sciences at the Cambrid Institute at the Cambrid Institute.
How reliable are the findings?
The scientists published their findings in the publication of Letters of the Astrophysics magazine reviewed by peers, which means that other experts in the field who studied their article found him convincing.
But that does not mean that scientists have found irrigible evidence of life. Nothing of the sort.
Madhusudhan acknowledged that it is possible that the traces of DMS and DMD found in the atmosphere of K2-18B are the result of the chemical phenomena that are from now on, unknown to humanity.
“It is important that we are deeply skeptical of the results, because it is only testing again that we can reach the point where we are sure of them,” said Madhusudhan. “This is how science has to work.”
His colleagues in the research team agreed.
“Our work is the starting point of all the investigations that are now needed to confirm and understand the implications of these exciting findings,” said co -author Savvas Constantinou, also from the Cambridge Astronomy Institute.
The findings of the team led by Cambridge follow a series of advances in recent years that have excited scientists about the possibilities of finding life beyond the earth.
In 2011, NASA scientists announced that they had found chemicals that are DNA components in meteorites that had landed in Antarctica. The chemical traces they had discovered could not have been the result of pollution after meteorites landed on Earth. The only explanation: that asteroids and comets could contain the basic components of life.
A year later, astronomers from the University of Copenhagen tracked a sugar molecule into a distant star system. That molecule is an essential component or ribonucleic acid or RNA, a molecule that is critical for most biological functions.
In 2023, astronomers found traces of organic molecules in gases around one of Saturn’s moons, blinded.
And in mid -2014, scientists identified five greenhouse gases who said they would be revealing signs of life on any other planet.
But the journey of science is also about setbacks. In 2005, two NASA scientists said they had found possible extraterrestrial life traces on Mars after discovering signs of methane there. However, those possible findings did not resist scientific scrutiny and the NASA distanced from their conclusions.
What follows?
The team led by Cambridge has found DMS and DMD with 99.7 percent of certainty. But although that may sound as an almost perfect score, it is far from what is accepted as the reference point for a new discovery according to the demanding standards of science.
In order for their conclusions to be consulted to bulletproof, they need to reach what is known as the threshold of five Sigma-99999444 percent.
Astronomers believe that more hours in the James Webb telescope could help them reach that level of confirmation.
“Within decades, we can look back at this time and collect it was when the living universe entered into reach,” Madhusudhan said. “This could be the turning point, where suddenly the fundamental issue of that we are alone in the universe is a capable of responding.”