Scientists have detected the strongest hint so far of extraterrestrial life.
The James Webb Space Telescope looked at light coming through the atmosphere of the planet K2-18b, 124 light years away, and found the presence of large amounts of dimethyl sulfide, a molecule that on Earth is only made by life, especially marine algae.
Earlier observations of K2-18b had found water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane, all of which are associated with life.
There are many ways this could turn out to be false — some as-yet-unknown geological process that creates the molecule, or a simple measurement error — but if further observations confirm the finding, it raises the possibility of a water world teeming with, at the very least, microbial life.
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