An ocean world that’s teeming with microbes — and who knows what other kinds of life — is currently the best explanation for some chemical signatures that the James Webb Space Telescope has spotted in the atmosphere of a distant planet.
That’s according to Nikku Madhusudhan of the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy, who called his team’s new findings “astounding.”
“These are the first hints we are seeing of an alien world that is possibly inhabited,” he told reporters in a press briefing. “This is a revolutionary moment.”
It’s also a harbinger of future claims about possible signs of life beyond our solar system that should become increasingly common, as scientists take advantage of the James Webb Space Telescope’s unprecedented ability to probe the atmosphere of small planets that orbit far away stars.
In this case, the purportedly tell-tale gases that appear to be in this planet’s atmosphere are either dimethyl sulfide, dimethyl disulfide, or some combination of the two. On Earth, these are only produced by life, particularly by marine microbes.
Madhusudhan, despite his enthusiasm, noted that the detection of these gases needs to be confirmed with more telescope observations. And other astronomers are skeptical.
“I think this is one of those situations where extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” says Laura Kreidberg, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany who was not part of the research team. “I’m not sure we’re at the extraordinary evidence level yet.”
She says scientists are still learning how to use this powerful new space telescope to analyze the make-up of alien atmospheres by studying the tiny amount of starlight that filters through them.
“I want to emphasize this is an insanely difficult measurement,” says Kreidberg.
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