- cross-posted to:
- space@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- space@beehaw.org
Webb finds molecule only made by living things in another world::undefined
You must log in or register to comment.
Only a 1 sigma confirmation at the moment so needs to be thoroughly reinvestigated
What does 1 sigma mean?
By saying 1 sigma, they are basically saying tgat are 68% confident in the results. As you increase the sigma, your confidence in the results increases. Here is a site that goes into more in depth explanation: https://news.mit.edu/2012/explained-sigma-0209#
It’s a number that statistically represents how strong the result is in the data basically. As far as I understand it, with astronomy the typical sigma value expected is 3
A chemical only produced by life on earth. But can it be produced by abiotic conditions on other planets? I’m not sure that has been ruled out at this point.
Yeah, this headline is bullshit. It’s indication of possible life, but it isn’t what the headline makes it sound. There’s always other possible methods, even if we aren’t aware of them yet. It’s interesting, but doesn’t confirm anything yet.
it picked up hints of a substance only made by living things — at least, that is, on Earth.
What other process could theoretically produce it?
if you have methanol, hydrogen sulfide and enough heat along with a specific rock, it will get formed. or probably methane, hydrogen sulfide and UV
there are many ways, and what i’m saying it’s likely a massive clickbait
t. organic chemist, currently working with sulfur compounds
I would also hesitate to automatically rule anything out. The Fermi paradox exists for a reason, and it makes logical sense that if life can appear in one place, it can (and will) do it again. In a universe as large as ours, it’s basically inevitable that we will eventually discover some form of alien life, even if it’s just single-celled organisms (assume we as a species survive long enough).
I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in because whenever anything like this comes up, you get a rush of two kinds of people: “omg aliens!” and “omg look at all the idiots who thinks it’s aliens; everyone knows aliens aren’t real”. It frustrates me because the existence of alien life shouldn’t be controversial. If anything, imo, the idea that alien life doesn’t exist should be controversial (the Fermi paradox exists for a reason). Just because we haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It’s honestly scarier imo if it doesn’t exist due to the implications of it.
— someone who woulda probably been an astrophysicist if they’d been given a chance earlier in life
i said nothing about aliens, all i say is that claim “dimethyl sulfide = definite sign of life” makes it a powerful clickbait, because there are processes that can provide it abiogenically from something similar to earth’s primordial soup
your assumption seems overly optimistic
“Specific rock” sounds like a video game crafting resource ;)
first step might look for example like this https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Reaction-mechanism-for-the-formation-of-methanethiol-with-Al-and-Mg-cations-and_fig4_339245530
Given the vast differences in atmospheres (or the lack thereof) and their conditions, I wouldn’t be surprised if those were the culprits
There are plenty of places on earth where life exists in conditions that seem alien compared to the rest of the planet.
“life finds a way”.
deleted by creator
Sadly they cannot be communicated with in a single human life time; assuming they are intelligent and possess the capability to respond.
Even if Webb were to basically spot earth 2 5 light years away, I’d caution about getting excited for a radio chat.
Remember that life has existed on earth for something like 3 billion years, but multicellular life has only been around for 500 million or so years, humans in various forms have been around for about a million years, and we’ve only had radio for about a hundred years.
The vast majority of life that has ever existed on our planet has been single called organisms. Finding evidence of any life on another planet is huge news, but we should temper our expectations.
It’s way, way more likely for alien planets to have oceans full of plankton analogues as the dominant life. Considering the rest of this planet’s atmosphere is composed mostly of hydrogen, even their plankton would be weird by our standards.
We could irradiate Earth2 with so much RF radiation the crearures of the other planet all develop immune to cancer!
It’s a planet 8x the mass of the earth with a heavy hydrogen atmosphere and is considered very hot, the water is in a super critical state. I think if we found anything it would just be bacterial life.
My bet is on “previously unknown chemistry” creating the chemicals we found. It’s never aliens :(
But the definition of a single human lifetime could very well change within one human lifetime from now.
deleted by creator
To me it’s not a matter of whether live exists anymore, but where it exists
I’d be pretty happy to put $100 right now on life being found on almost every planet and moon throughout the galaxy where liquid water exists.
Im seriously excited to get to Europa
