Oops! It Appears There’s a Striking Flaw in That Claim About Detecting Alien Life

A team of astronomers announced this week that they have Discover a possible sign of life On EXoplanet 124 light years away from the James Web telescope. The most tempting thing, was already suspected of being the outer planets, called K2-12B, is a world in the ocean.

Bioxinality is a molecule called dual methayl sulfide. On the ground, they are produced exclusively by vegetable boxes and other microbes. Thus, the authors of the new study, published in Astronomical physical magazine messagesKeep the best explanation for detection is that the K2-12B is full of life.

but The situation may not be very clear. While a dual methale sulfide is an organic substance on our planet, there is a set of evidence that indicates that non -biological operations in other places of the universe can produce the complex, as science writer Korean notes Korean Korean In a blossom thread.

A Ticket In February, it was published about a possible discovery of a dual methale sulfide in the middle between the stars, which are gas clouds and dust in space between the stars. Another paper published last year showed that the molecule of reactions can be produced with UV light in the laboratory representation of an atmosphere of outer planets. Astrologists have also found the supposed biological expansion On a perfect guilty.

It goes without saying, all this Summiously summon whether the mere miclopic sulfide is anything close to a specific indicator A life outside the planet.

It seems that researchers who are behind the last paper, for their part, want to get it in both directions: a wonderful advertisement with quoted moments about its tremendous importance, but sprayed with notes on caution that covers their heels if the results turned into a display of something else.

Niko Madocodhan, astronomer at Cambridge University and author of the recent discovery author, said at a press conference on Tuesday, as it was reported before Newton.

However, it was called a “revolutionary moment”.

“This is the first time that humanity has seen a potentially vital negligence on a good planet,” Madosodhan added.

It is worth noting that NASA, who issued a press statement of the former Madosodhan works that found methane and carbon in the atmosphere of K2-12B, an actDo not comment In this last study.

The K2-12B appears to be larger than the ground, with the mass five times, but it is smaller than Neptune. It rotates in the “Goldilock area” of its star, where the temperatures are correct in obtaining liquid water on its surface. Madeusudhan’s action indicates that the atmosphere of the nasal planets is mired at levels of the sulfur of Methyl higher than the Earth.

Even if Methyl sulfide is a reliable vital renewal, some astronomers are skeptical of discovering it here.

Edward Cheving, an astronomer at the University of California, said Riferside who did not participate in the research, he said NPR. “It is not a certain thing.”

REM is suspected that the signal may disappear when the other teams receive a look.

“I think this is one of those cases where unusual claims require unusual evidence,” said Laura Credberg, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany, which did not participate in the research. NPR. “I am not sure that we are at the level of extraordinary evidence yet.”

More about the outer planets: The James Web telescope takes pictures of individual planets in the distant stars system