By Charlie Levin
The Milky Way Galaxy has billions of stars, just like our own Sun. Many of these stars have planets. And many of those planets have conditions that could harbor life. There are billions of galaxies. There is no way that we are alone in the universe.
This question has persisted, with many conspiracy theories being created, from UFO sightings to the Pyramids of Giza. But we have never had concrete proof to show that we aren’t alone.
The launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) on Christmas of 2021 was highly anticipated for this reason. Much more advanced than the Hubble Space Telescope, it was believed that it would be the telescope to detect life outside of Earth, if there was any.
Supposedly, it made the potential discovery just a few weeks ago..
The planet between the size of Earth and Neptune, called K2-18b and approximately 124 light years away, has the strongest signs of life we have seen yet.
JWST detected a potential presence of a biosignature gas, a chemical that could prove life exists on this planet. The chemical, dimethyl sulfide, is produced by marine phytoplankton and bacteria on Earth and was detected on K2-18b, which is a promising find. If this chemical is abundant as scientists say it is, the only probable explanation that we know of is that it is an ocean world teeming with life.
While this is a promising sign and the strongest one we’ve found yet, more still needs to be done. It is only a little bit of evidence, and the signal is from a long way away. JWST gave data that is 99.7% sure, but that isn’t enough. To form a definitive conclusion, they need to be 99.9% sure.
And so the question persists: are we alone in the universe or just one of many life forms?