📰 Full Story

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has made a landmark discovery.

Key Findings

  • Target Planet: K2-18b, 120 light-years from Earth, located within the habitable zone
  • Detected Substance: Dimethyl sulfide (DMS), produced on Earth exclusively by marine phytoplankton
  • Other Components: Simultaneous detection of methane and carbon dioxide, consistent with models of liquid oceans
  • Confidence Level: Signal confidence of 3.5σ, one step away from the 5σ discovery standard

Scientific Significance

This is the first time humans have detected chemical signals directly related to biological activity in an exoplanet’s atmosphere. The research team stated that more observational data is needed to finally confirm this discovery.

Source: NASA press conference, Nature preprint