Is Anybody Out There?

Yeah, probably.

Photo by Daniel Olah on Unsplash

Scientists have found - with 99.7% confidence, that molecules that are associated with life exist on a planet about 124 light years away from earth. The planet is called K2-18b, but that will likely change if life is confirmed there. If these results are confirmed in the next year or two, that would mean that the Universe is likely teaming with life. Maybe we aren’t that special.

The team from Cambridge studying K2-18b, discovered the markers for those molecules in the atmosphere of the distant planet by examining the light coming from the planet’s star as it passed through the planet’s atmosphere. That is some hard core cool science. The scientists detected molecules of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) which on earth is only produced by living organisms like bacteria and phytoplankton. The research that just came out follows from 2023 research that found similar data (I remember reading that back then, but reading at the time that they had to do more experiments to confirm the results).

If we aren’t alone, maybe we could be a little more humble. We would know that the Universe doesn’t belong to us. We would confirm that we are just one of many, perhaps millions, or billions of planets with life.

K2-18b and any other planet with life aren’t within arms reach. They are so far away that we could never get there in one lifetime, or even many lifetimes. There are no money making enterprises from K2-18b tourism. All we could get out of it is knowing that we are not alone, and that we maybe aren’t that special.

I think that would be freeing.

Knowing that there are others out there, that we can never know, never talk to, never conquer, but who are just as important and worthy of life as us, even if they are just plankton on K2-18b - might just change our perspective.

In human history, we will have gone from knowing that we are the center of the universe (we were wrong), to knowing that we were the only life in the universe (looks like we might be wrong), to knowing we are just one form of life in the universe teeming with it. It’s hard to believe in any manifest destiny in the universe when there is likely life doing it’s thing, pretty much everywhere.

Not so fast my friend.

But leave it to scientists to throw cold water on the “we just discovered proof of life outside Earth parade.” An article in Scientific American appeared a day after the first announcement titled, Why Astronomers Are Not Sold on New Alien Life Claims.

Some scientists are still waiting to be convinced, noting that the presence of DMS could be a false signal. Like any scientific endeavor, the research of the Cambridge team will have to be repeated by other scientists - and if they get the same results, that will strengthen the case for life of some kind on the planet.

The article goes on to say the DMS could be produced by a process that does not involve life, that DMS has been found on a comet, and that our experience on Earth, where DMS comes from a chemical reaction inside a living organism, might bias our thinking.

So it is important to acknowledge that the science is not settled. It looks promising (if you are rooting for life), but nothing is definitive yet from a scientific perspective.

So for now, we know there is a high probability that the markers for life have been found on a distant planet. That could still end up not being the case. Pump the breaks for now.

So what does it mean?

The DMS levels on K2-18b are higher than those we have here on Earth, so this isn’t just some blip. Any non-organic way to produce K2-18b would have to be happening at an industrial level to produce that much of the substance.

But until we get more proof, we will just have to wait.

I think with the number of stars and galaxies out there, it is inevitable that something else is alive out there in the cosmos. The Fermi Paradox may be that life hits a brick wall when it gets intelligent enough to intentionally destroy itself. But with likely millions and perhaps billions of planets with life on them, maybe something out there will be smart enough not to kill themselves off, even if that isn’t us.