New Possible Sign of Alien Life. Wait, What？

Science is Future

We just found a “possible signature of life” on another planet - what EXACTLY does that mean?   It’s on a planet 2.5x the size of earth called K2-18 b, near a star 124 light years away. We know the planet’s there because we see a DIP in the light from the star as the planet crosses in front of it. And to figure out what’s in its atmosphere, we can analyze juuust the light that passes through the atmosphere before getting to us.   Here's what they found...   For more optimistic science and tech stories, subscribe...   #jwst #alien #tech #nasa #space #science #stem

Transcript

00:00We just found a possible signature of life on another planet.

00:03What exactly does that mean?

00:05It's on this distant planet, near a star 124 light years away.

00:08We know that the planet's there because we see a tiny dip in the light from the star

00:12as the planet crosses in front of it.

00:14And to figure out what's in its atmosphere,

00:16we can actually analyze the light that passes through the atmosphere before it gets to us.

00:21And what they seem to have found is two molecules that on Earth only come from life,

00:26like marine algae, thousands of times more than in our own atmosphere.

00:29Which is huge, if these molecules behave the way that they do on Earth.

00:33But they could behave differently.

00:34Some think that this planet could have a molten ocean of rock and no life at all.

00:38On top of that, this is what's called a 3 sigma result, meaning 99.7% accuracy,

00:43which is up from 68% around a year and a half ago,

00:46but they still need a 5 sigma result, which is 99.99999% accuracy.

00:50Either way, we learned something new.

00:51I'm hoping for aliens.

00:52If you need more optimistic science and tech stories, subscribe.

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