00:00For more on this, let's go ahead and bring in Niku Medusadhan, who you just heard from in that story,
00:05who thinks this is the strongest evidence yet of possible life outside our solar system.
00:10He's a professor of astrophysics and exoplanetary science at the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge.
00:16Thank you so much for joining us, sir.
00:19Thank you for having me here.
00:20Well, we're very excited about this because you call this a revolutionary moment.
00:25What's next in your research here?
00:27Yeah, I mean, primarily because, you know, this is the first time we have demonstrated capability to detect these kinds of molecules.
00:36Obviously, we are seeing tentative signs right now.
00:38But the next steps that put more observations on this planet to see if the signal we're finding is real.
00:44And if it's real, it's a big, big development because these molecules, as you've heard, are only produced by life here on Earth.
00:52And even if they're not produced by life elsewhere, it shows that we can detect such biosignature candidate biosignature molecules on other planets.
00:59So that search has come that much closer.
01:02It's just absolutely fascinating.
01:03You know, when many people think of life on another planet, and look, we've seen those images from movies.
01:08We just showed some from E.T., for example.
01:11Explain to us what exactly this life could look like.
01:15What would differ from what we think we know?
01:18Yeah, so we can only go based on what we know here on Earth.
01:22So these molecules are produced primarily by microorganisms in the Earth's oceans like phytoplankton.
01:27So that is our baseline assumption that if it's an ocean world out there producing molecules like this,
01:33then the kind of life we are talking about is simple microbial life, like existed in the very early Earth oceans and still exists.
01:40We are not able to comment on how complex that life can get at all.
01:46But even the fact that we can detect such molecules from simple life potentially would be a major development
01:53because that would be the first hint of life being possible elsewhere.
01:58Absolutely. And as we said, this is about 120 light years away.
02:04So is it even possible for humans to get the chance to potentially meet other life in space if it's that far away?
02:13Yeah, so no, we are not talking about going there anytime soon at all.
02:16We are just saying that we have the huge technological capability that thanks to NASA and other space agencies have this JWST,
02:25which is just a great machine for us to probe these atmospheres from that far and establish some of these conditions.
02:32Well, I think all of us will be following your work very, very closely on this planet and perhaps even beyond.
02:39Niku Medusadhan, thank you so much for joining us.
02:42Thank you for having me.
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