The Webb Space Telescope has been scouring the deepest reaches of space for the past year, and it has now come across one of its largest discoveries yet. Monday, researchers revealed they found a planet roughly 120 light-years from Earth that have similar qualities to our planet. Orbiting the cool dwarf star named K2-18, scientist says the data shows that the planet—the aptly named K2-18b—not only lies in the star’s habitable zone but likely has oceans of water on its surface as well as methane and carbon dioxide in its atmosphere.
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“Our findings underscore the importance of considering diverse habitable environments in the search for life elsewhere,” astronomer Nikku Madhusudhan, an astronomer at the University of Cambridge and lead author of the study, said in a press release distributed by NASA. “Traditionally, the search for life on exoplanets has focused primarily on smaller rocky planets, but the larger Hycean worlds are significantly more conducive to atmospheric observations.”
“Although this kind of planet does not exist in our solar system, sub-Neptunes are the most common type of planet known so far in the galaxy,” added team member Subhajit Sarkar of Cardiff University. “We have obtained the most detailed spectrum of a habitable-zone sub-Neptune to date, and this allowed us to work out the molecules that exist in its atmosphere.”
With the newest findings, the team hopes to continue exploring possible habitable zones until the discovery of alien life.
“Our ultimate goal is the identification of life on a habitable exoplanet, which would transform our understanding of our place in the universe,” concluded Madhusudhan. “Our findings are a promising step towards a deeper understanding of Hycean worlds in this quest.”
On top of methane and carbon dioxide, data obtained by Webb seemingly suggests the presence of dimethyl sulfide (DMS), a compound on Earth that is only produced by humans. This discovery echoes an announcement earlier this year where scientists revealed they found phosphines, other molecules only produced by life on Earth, in the atmosphere of Venus.
“We’ve made significant progress since we obtained the initial data in 2017,” Greaves said in a chat with IFLScience earlier this year. “We have now discovered phosphine on five separate occasions, allowing us to analyze its behavior. The focus is no longer solely on finding it; it’s about understanding how it changes over time and what implications that might have.”
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