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JWST provides new evidence of life beyond Earth

The NASA scientists have obtained, so far the strongest, evidence of life beyond Earth

Saturday April 19, 2025 0:04 AM, ummid.com News Network

[Representative image]

Washington: The NASA scientists have obtained, so far the strongest, evidence of life beyond Earth.

Using JWS Telescope, the scientists detected in an alien planet's atmosphere chemical fingerprints of gases that are produced on Earth only by biological processes, Reuters reported.

The two gases — dimethyl sulfide, or DMS, and dimethyl disulfide, or DMDS — involved in Webb's observations of the planet named K2-18 b are generated on Earth by living organisms, primarily microbial life such as marine phytoplankton - algae.

This suggests the planet may be teeming with microbial life, the researchers said. They stressed, however, that they are not announcing the discovery of actual living organisms but rather a possible biosignature - an indicator of a biological process - and that the findings should be viewed cautiously, with more observations needed, according to UAE based WAM.

"Hycean World"

James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), jointly owned by NASA, European Space Agency, and Canadian Space Agency. The JWST found the evidence of life on exoplanet K2-18b, which is nearly nine times more massive than Earth and circles in the "habitable zone" of a star about 120 light-years away from us.

The scientists made the original, tentative DMS detection using JWST's NIRISS (Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph) and NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instruments.

For the new study, the researchers employed the $10 billion telescope's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), which scrutinizes different wavelengths of light, according to Space.com.

Based on its size and other characteristics, astronomers suspect that K2-18b may be a "Hycean" world — a class of exoplanet proposed in 2021 that has a huge liquid-water ocean and a hydrogen-rich atmosphere.

"Hycean" is a portmanteau of "hydrogen" and "ocean".

Furthermore, K2-18b's air is also rich in DMS and/or DMDS, according to the new study. The researchers estimate concentrations of more than 10 parts per million by volume, compared to less than one part per billion for them here on Earth.

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