The article discusses the concept of stellar systems potentially hosting life, likening them to lottery tickets. While Earth is confirmed to harbor life, recent claims regarding exoplanet K2-18b's atmosphere containing life-signature molecules like dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and dimethyl disulfide (DMDS) have emerged. These findings, based on observations from JWST, suggest significant implications for extraterrestrial life. However, skepticism surrounds the accuracy of these claims, highlighting the ongoing challenges in confirming life beyond our Solar System.
While we can be certain that Earth is one of the winning tickets in this cosmic lottery, it's plausible that there are many other winners.
A recent exciting claim asserts that we've now come tantalizingly close: by finding signatures of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and dimethyl disulfide (DMDS) in the atmosphere of exoplanet K2-18b.
These molecules... are seen with both JWST's NIRCam and MIRI instruments, at about the 3-sigma significance, meaning there's only a ~0.3% chance of this being a fluke.
It's a wild claim, put forth by one particular group at Cambridge led by exoplanet scientist Nikku Madhusudhan. Unfortunately, nearly every aspect of this claim is almost certainly wrong.
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