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Scientists find strongest evidence yet of life on an alien planet
- tmshapland 1y agoI've been waiting to see atmospheric composition results from JWT. It seems like JWT was first put to work on other tasks. Anyone know of other studies from JWT like this?
- niwtsol 1y agoHere is a list of approved programs for JWST - https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/science-execution/approved-programs https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/science-execution/approved-progra... You can filter by cycle & purpose - I think you want GO 4 then look at Exoplanet Atmospheres and Habitability? Related, but here is the Spectra of K2-18 image - https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2023/139/01H9RF0CCN4MZYDG56Q7K33WQV https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2023/139/01H...
- tmshapland 1y agoThis is cool! Thank you for responding with this! Really neat to see the K2-18 spectra too.
- incognito124 1y agoduplicate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43714203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43714203
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- gamescr 1y agohttps://archive.is/bEYGH https://archive.is/bEYGH
- ChrisArchitect 1y ago[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43711376 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43711376
- 1024core 1y agoWhat about just looking for oxygen in a planet's atmosphere?
- bobmcnamara 1y agoMight be a noise floor from all the interstellar medium oxygen?
- schainks 1y agoThird line of the summary: > Gases found are the same as those produced by algae on Earth AIUI, the sensors used for this discover don't look for just _one_ gas, but as many as possible. So Oxygen is probably included in that list. Life needs more than just oxygen gas in the atmosphere to thrive. The right combination of gasses is a better signal that life could be there versus just the presence of one gas.
- Galatians4_16 1y agoPlenty of abiotic oxygen sources, even on Earth.
- rbanffy 1y agoAnd plenty of life for which Oxygen is a poison.
- __MatrixMan__ 1y agoFor example, the anaerobic bacteria in your gut do not venture out into your other organs because they cannot survive in the presence of so much oxygen. There are of course membranes and such keeping them in check too, but I was surprised to learn that the oxygen gradient played a role.
- dakr 1y agoFree oxygen combines with other things very readily, so you need a steady source to replenish it. Abiotic sources may not be common/strong enough. It's been a long time since I've kept tabs on that research, however.
- rbanffy 1y agoSurface gravity is a bit higher than Earth (12 m/s2), but totally bearable for humans. The smell of the atmosphere, on the other hand, will be something the first human visitors will never forget ;-).
- wordglyph 1y agoSo no dunkin basketballs?
- rbanffy 1y ago12 m/s² doesn't seem too bad.
- fracus 1y agoI'm curious how many generations of natural selection it would take humans to adapt to the new gravity assuming we had no technology to do it.
- glenstein 1y agoA great question. And one fascinating but maybe disturbing thing we have seen from the ISS is the body seems to be pretty aggressive with bone decalcification in lower-G environments. I don't know if there's a corollary for higher-G, and the mechanism is orthogonal to questions about heritability, but meaningful changes happen even within the life span of a single person.
- msephton 1y agoGravity strength varies all over Earth so there are areas with slightly higher than normal gravity. eg. Dartmoor. I wonder if people who live there have higher bone density? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_anomalies_of_Britain_and_Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_anomalies_of_Britain_a...
- rbanffy 1y ago
- Simon_O_Rourke 1y agoAnd still there's uncertainty about intelligent life existing in Jersey City.
- glenstein 1y agoEverything about it feels like BFD category for potential microbial life if true. And all the circumstantial details seem to point in the same direction. Potential hydrogen-rich ocean planet in a habitable zone, in alignment with theory about most plausible models for environments that might support life. It's got no known abiotic process for being generated, but a clearly understood connection to life, and is apparently very reactive and would have to be actively re-generated at mass scale to sustainably show up in an atmosphere. Nothing should be taken as proven, but it feels staggeringly plausible, and in my opinion would be the biggest of the "big if true" space stories I've ever seen in my lifetime.
- beng-nl 1y agoI had to finish your comment before realizing you truly meant BFD as such and not (as I think more often the use is) sarcastically BFD. That said I agree.
- eMPee584 1y agoBFD in this context standing for "Big Fucking Deal" (Urban Dictionary), not "Binary File Descriptor" (V.E.R.A. - Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms) I guess?
- karim79 1y agoI'm reminded of this wonderful talk from Clara Sousa-Silva[0], a 'quantum astrochemist'. At one point in this fascinating talk, she mentions that aliens would immediately be able to identify Earth as inhabited by life, because only a stupid and yet advanced civilization would be capable of creating CFCs. I highly recommend this video. [0] https://youtu.be/iN0uyGVNlkQ?si=unBC3Cj228fKJV4i https://youtu.be/iN0uyGVNlkQ?si=unBC3Cj228fKJV4i