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Webb Discovers Methane, Carbon Dioxide in Atmosphere of K2-18 b - NASA (www.nasa.gov)

submitted 8 months ago by wargreymon2023@sopuli.xyz to c/astronomy@mander.xyz

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This is about as close as we can get for carbon-based life habitable planet. 2.6 times the radius of Earth and mostly ocean, what sort of marine lives swim in there? Give me chills if they exist.

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[–] tunetardis@lemmy.ca 30 points 8 months ago (1 children)

This is where it starts to get exciting. Up to this point in human history, we have had no firm evidence of life on another world even though speculation runs rife. It is always just beyond our reach to detect it, but we may soon collect enough bio-signatures to infer its existence with reasonable confidence.

[–] nexusband@lemmy.world 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Life on K2-18 b is still pretty unlikely. Or at least what we would call life... There have been signs of Dimethyl sulfide, which would be one of those bio markers.

[–] Orbituary@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago

I would say it's neither likely or unlikely. It'd simply unconfirmed. We don't have a solid baseline for establishing how widespread life is.

What we do know is that carbon and long-chain carbon molecules like methane are indicators. Nothing more.