Alien planet’s atmosphere bears chemical hints of life, astronomers claim

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By Daniel Clery, Science. 

Excerpt: Researchers have found promising hints that the atmosphere of a distant planet contains gases linked to life, BBC reports today. A team led by University of Cambridge astronomer Nikku Madhusudhan reports in The Astrophysical Journal Letters that it used NASA’s JWST telescope to detect the signatures of the gases dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and dimethyl disulfide (DMDS) in starlight that had passed through the atmosphere of K2-18b, a massive planet 120 light-years from Earth. On Earth, those gases are produced by marine phytoplankton and give sea air its distinctive scent. ...It’s also possible that DMS and DMDS are produced on the planet by some nonbiological process. Last year, a different team of researchers reported signs of DMS within the dust and gas of the definitively lifeless comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, calling into question the gas’ usefulness as a biosignature.... 


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