Life on Planet K2-18b  

By Shlomo Maital  

      Dear readers, you may have missed this.

      The incredible James Webb Space Telescope has just discovered DMS dimethyl sulfide and DMDS dimethyl disulfide on a distant planet   K2-18b.

       So?  So what?

       These two compounds are ONLY produced…. By living organisms.  How did the telescope discover it? By spectroscopy — analyzing the light and breaking it down into components that contain the ‘fingerprint’ of DMS.

        On Planet Earth, these compounds are emitted to the atmosphere by phytoplankton.  They are widely produced by bacteria, metabolizing waste, and produce bad smells (rotten eggs, e.g.).  

         No, this is not absolute certain proof of life outside Earth.  But it’s a wow, isn’t it? 

          Human beings on earth evolved first 50,000 years ago.  The Earth is 4.8 billion years old.  So if 4.8 billion years is, say, one year, human beings have been on Earth for just 30 minutes.  Just a blink of an eye.  So perhaps on K2-18b, things are just getting rolling.

          Fun to imagine how life on K2-18b might look eventually.