Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered chemical traces on the planet K2-18b, located 124 light years from Earth, that are typically produced by life. This groundbreaking finding heralds the possibility of extraterrestrial life, although it comes with skepticism surrounded by the scientific community. K2-18b, which resides in the habitable Goldilocks Zone of its star, has shown characteristics suggesting it could support liquid water. The discovery prompts both excitement and further inquiry into what it means for life beyond our solar system.
These are the first hints we are seeing of an alien world that is possibly inhabited, Nikku Madhusudhan, an astronomy professor at Cambridge and the lead researcher behind the discovery, told reporters.
The researchers relied on data captured by NASA's James Webb telescope, which was carried into outer space in 2022, and sits about 1.5 million kilometers away from Earth, as humanity's watchtower peering into the universe.
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