00:00In the midst of absolute emptiness, something was breathing.
00:03The James Webb Space Telescope looked where no one had dared before.
00:09And what he found could rewrite everything we think we know about life in the universe.
00:14For years, the exoplanet K2-18b was just a man in a database.
00:20A temperate gas giant, orbiting a small, cool star 120 light-years away from us.
00:26But then, James Webb pointed his eye at him.
00:31And the atmosphere spoke.
00:33First it detected water vapor.
00:35A promising sign, but not surprising.
00:38Then came carbon dioxide.
00:41And then, methane.
00:43That's where things stopped being normal.
00:46Because although methane can have a volcanic or geological origin on Earth, it is also a sign of life.
00:52Microorganisms, animals, even we ourselves, produce it all the time.
00:59And at K2-18b, the levels were strange.
01:03They didn't quite fit with what an inert planet should emit.
01:07Could there be something out there, releasing methane, like living things do here?
01:11But the most disconcerting thing was yet to be revealed.
01:16A chemical signature that no one expected.
01:19A molecule that, until now, had only been detected in one place.
01:23The Earth.
01:25Its name is dimethyl sulfide.
01:27And on our planet, this substance is only produced by certain marine microorganisms.
01:33Microscopic life.
01:34Small, but alive.
01:36What was that molecule doing floating in the atmosphere of a planet 120 light-years away?
01:42The scientists stopped.
01:45They analyzed.
01:46They looked again.
01:47And there I still was.
01:49The signal.
01:50Persistent.
01:51Indisputable.
01:53This is not proof of life.
01:54But there is a clue.
01:56A faint signal that could change everything.
01:59And what's most unsettling is that this planet isn't the only one.
02:03K2-18, B was no exception.
02:07It was only the beginning.
02:09Because the James Webb Space Telescope did not stop its search there.
02:14In another region of the sky, hundreds of light-years away, another planet showed even stranger signs.
02:21In its atmosphere, the spectra revealed the presence of ammonia and hydrogen cyanide.
02:26Molecules that, under controlled conditions, can be toxic.
02:30But in suitable environments, they can also form part of chemical chains that are fundamental to life.
02:36A combination so precise that some astronomers began to whisper.
02:42Not life as we know it, but alien biochemistry.
02:46But there's something more.
02:47In another star system, a molecule was detected that shouldn't be there.
02:52A complex organic compound.
02:54One that, according to current models, can only form under specific conditions.
02:59Pressure, temperature, and time.
03:02A long time.
03:03More than that planet should have.
03:05It's as if someone, or something, had placed it there.
03:10An error in the models?
03:11Or the signature of an ancient civilization?
03:14Theories are multiplying.
03:17Some rational ones.
03:18Others, too bold to be said out loud.
03:22But they all agree on one thing.
03:25James Webb is seeing things we shouldn't be seeing yet.
03:30Worlds that are too complex.
03:32Atmospheres that speak.
03:33Molecules that don't fit together.
03:35And we're just getting started.
03:37Because if in just two years of observation we already detect anomalous chemical traces,
03:43What will happen when the telescope points farther away?
03:46Deeper?
03:47Closer to the truth?
03:48Life, perhaps, is not out there waiting to be discovered.
03:53Perhaps he is already watching us.
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