K2-18b Planet: Where are the aliens? Scientists surprised!
Ever since humans started trying to understand the universe, one question has always been haunting us. Are we alone in this vast universe? Now the strongest answer to this question can be found. It is related to a planet K2-18b located 700 trillion miles away.
K2-18b is a planet that is outside our solar system. It orbits a red dwarf star. This planet is two and a half times bigger than Earth. It has been classified as a "Asian World". That is, a planet that can have liquid water on its surface and hydrogen is expected to be abundant in the atmosphere. This is the feature that makes it suitable for life like Earth.
Who made this discovery and how?
This is a revolutionary discovery in the world of astronomy, which professor Nikku Madhusudan of the Institute of Astronomy of Cambridge university and his team have found with the help of NASA's james Webb Space Telescope (JWST). This telescope examined the light of the star passing through the atmosphere of K2-18b, and found signs of two special atoms - dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and dimethyl disulfide (DMDS). Both these gases are produced on Earth only by organisms, such as marine phytoplankton and some types of bacteria.
Is this proof of alien life?
According to professor Madhusudan, "This is the strongest indication so far that there may be life on K2-18b. We hope that it will be confirmed in the next 1-2 years." Although the team and other scientists say that more data is needed to confirm this discovery, but no such signal has ever been found before, which is so clear.
Scientific importance of signs of life associated with planet K2-18b
The importance of this discovery can be understood from the fact that it is not just based on imagination, but on solid scientific parameters. Powerful telescopes like JWST have proved that we can understand the chemical composition of planets located thousands of trillions of miles away from Earth. If a gas like DMS is indeed present in the atmosphere of this planet, then it means that biological processes like those on Earth are taking place there or can take place.
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