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Possible life identified on distant exoplanet
A large planet 120 light years from Earth, currently called K2-18b has been identified as having dimethyl sulfide and methane. On Earth, dimethyl sulfide is exclusively produced by living organisms.The planet has been determined to orbit within the habitable zone of its parent star and is thought to possibly be an ocean world with a hydrogen rich atmosphere ( I assume that would also mean it lacks oxygen in its atmosphere(else I think the hydrogen would probably be combustible- or at least slowly react with oxygen to form H2O-with oxygen present, each lightning strike would lead to less hydrogen in the atmosphere and more H2O), but I am not an expert, and life existed on Earth before the Great Oxygenation Event). It would be weird if somehow this chemical dimethyl sulfide is produced by some geologic process on such a similar planet but is not produced by any such process on Earth. Either our understanding of geochemistry needs to be reworked, or there is a lot of life on K2-18b. I think the planet needs a better name. What would you call it? The latin word for life, "Vita", comes to mind for me. It is a planet significantly larger than Earth and possibly covered completely by water. It is hypothesized to possibly not be either a terrestrial planet nor a gas giant or ice giant, but rather a "Hycean" planet (the existence of which is also hypothesized).
If the dimethyl sulfide is produced by life, then the biochemistry on that planet must be similar to our own biochemistry. Does life there also have DNA/RNA? So many questions if this is confirmed to actually be life. It would be interesting if it was found that most alien life looks like life that has been on Earth at some point in its history or life that could successfully exist on Earth. It would be even more interesting if there were other forms of biochemistry possible on less traditionally habitable worlds like Titan that is less robust than regular carbon based life, but nevertheless exists on these strange worlds in a way analogous to extremophiles on Earth. |
Re: Possible life identified on distant exoplanet
That's so cool! I'd love to see what comes of this.
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Re: Possible life identified on distant exoplanet
This is lovely, thank you for this.
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