Robert Lea is a science journalist in the U.K. whose articles have been published in Physics World, New Scientist, Astronomy Magazine, All About Space, Newsweek and ZME Science. He also writes about science communication for Elsevier and the European Journal of Physics. Rob holds a bachelor of science degree in physics and astronomy from the U.K.
Recent reports of the James Webb Space Telescope detecting signs of life of a distant planet outside the solar system are, unfortunately, somewhat premature. That's the conclusion of research conducted by scientists from the University of California Riverside .
"What was icing on the cake, in terms of the search for life, is that last year these researchers reported a tentative detection of dimethyl sulfide, or DMS, in the atmosphere of that planet, which is produced by ocean phytoplankton on Earth," Tsai said. That means if DMS is accumulating to detectable levels, there must be something on K2-18 b, possibly a lifeform, producing it at 20 times the rate found on Earth.
"The DMS signal from the JWST was not very strong and only showed up in certain ways when analyzing the data," Tsai said."We wanted to know if we could be sure of what seemed like a hint about DMS."
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