Lightyears away, another ocean exists

It’s a triumph (‘We found life!’), and at the same time no surprise at all (‘What did you expect to find?’).

This artist's impression shows the planet K2-18b, its host star and an accompanying planet. Planet K2-18b is 8.6 times bigger than Earth, but it has an atmosphere containing carbon dioxide and methane, both commonly emitted by living things—and also dimethyl sulphide, a trace gas that is definitely a strong ‘biomarker’ for life.Courtesy of ESA/Hubble, M. Kornmesser

Opinion

BY GWYNNE DYER

September 13, 2023

LONDON, U.K.—This week’s real news is the discovery of life on another planet. As Cambridge University’s Nikku Madhusudhan said in the first sentence of his report: “The search for habitable environments and biomarkers in exoplanetary atmospheres is the holy grail of...

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