Scientists detect possible signs of life on another planet — but it’s not aliens

The new discovery in an alien planet's atmosphere showed the chemical fingerprints of gases that are only produced by biological processes on Earth.

Astronomers claim to have discovered the strongest signs yet of possible life on a planet 700 trillion miles away from Earth.

The scientists from the University of Cambridge used a mid-infrared camera from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to observe exoplanet K2-18b, a planet that is not in our solar system and is eight times the size of Earth, orbiting a star 124 light years away.

The planet was first discovered in 2017 by Canadian astronomers while looking through ground-based telescopes in Chile, according to the New York Times. The “hycean planet,” meaning it’s home to an abundance of a life-signifying molecule, is at the centre of a new study published in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The astronomers detected the chemical fingerprints of gases in the alien planet’s atmosphere that are only produced by biological processes on Earth.

The two gases — dimethyl sulphide (DMS) and dimethyl disulphide (DMDS) — involved in the observations of K2-18b are generated on Earth by living organisms, primarily microbial life such as marine phytoplankton, commonly known as algae.

This suggests the planet may be teeming with microbial life, researchers said.

“These are the first hints we are seeing of an alien world that is possibly inhabited,” Nikku Madhusudhan of the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy said in a press conference on Tuesday. “It is in no one’s interest to claim prematurely that we have detected life.

“This is a transformational moment in the search for life beyond the solar system, where we have demonstrated that it is possible to detect biosignatures in potentially habitable planets with current facilities. We have entered the era of observational astrobiology.”