When searching for life outside of our solar system, an international team of researchers may be an important step. In the atmosphere of a distant planet, astronomers discovered signs of two important chemical compounds that could indicate extraterrestrial life, as can be seen from a study published on Thursday in the specialist magazine “The Astrophysical Journal Letters”. The sulfur compounds are the most promising “hints” that there are actually life on the 124 light year-old exoplanet K2-18b. The discovery of dimethyl sulfide and dimethyldisulfide was successful with the help of the James Webb telescope, explained the team of British and US researchers. The substances, which are considered to be “biosignatures”, are only produced on earth by living beings, mostly by microscopic small seaweed, the phytoplankton. However, the researchers emphasized that further observations were necessary to confirm these results. It is not a final discovery. The effects could be enormous, according to the co -author Nikku Madhusudhan from the University of Cambridge. “What we find at this point are indications of possible biological activities outside the solar system,” he said to journalists. So close to the researchers, the researchers had never been found that they could “live”. He circles the sun K2-18, a red dwarf star in the Lion constellation, in the so-called habitable zone. This means that it is neither too hot nor too cold for the formation of liquid water as the most important prerequisite for life. K2-18B is more than eight times the size of the earth as this, Mars and Venus made of silicates and ice cream.
Researchers discover possible signs of life on exoplanets
