Evidence of possible life has just been found by NASA over 100 light years away. This evidence was found using NASA’s James Webb Telescope. The telescope found a small molecule called Dimethyl Sulphide on a distant planet. On Earth, this molecule can only be produced by life. Not only have they found the molecule, they have also found methane and CO2 in the planet’s atmosphere. This is a sign the planet could have an ocean made of water. The detection of DMS (Dimethyl Sulphide) was described as tentative and would require more data to confirm, results of which are expected in a year. The planet is named K2-18b, and it is located 120 light years away. It is almost nine times the size of Earth. K2-18b is known as an exoplanet, a planet that exists outside of our solar system, and it orbits a dwarf star many light years away from Earth in the constellation of Leo. The planet is categorized as a sub-Neptune; This class of planets is between the size of Earth and Neptune, and are common in the universe, not in our solar system though. This planet has all the signs researchers need when evaluating if a planet can support life: temperature, the presence of carbon, and potentially liquid water. The way the James Webb Telescope works is by evaluating distant planets, which is done by analyzing the light that passes through their atmosphere, which contains chemical signatures of molecules. The planet K2-18b had already been detected as having water vapor by NASA’s Hubble telescope; this led to the planet being studied by the James Webb telescope. Just because a planet has all the signs of it potentially supporting life it doesn’t mean that it does, nonetheless, the possibility of the presence of Dimethyl Sulphide is still so tantalizing because of the potential it could mean for the exoplanet.
