https://mashable.com/article/james-webb-space-telescope-exoplanet-discovery-1
Could this exoplanet be inhabited?
Webb finds molecule only made by living things in another world::undefined
While I agree there is a very high probability of life out there, we truly do not know until we can prove it. This evidence JWT found may have another explanation that our scientists are unaware of yet.
I’m so excited to discover a totally different take on life because it will help us truly define what life is.
Then again if we find a similar take on life (carbon based, compatible chemistry to life on earth) then that’s pretty interesting too, implying either panspermia or that there’s something special about this configuration. It also likely means we have more potential for useful discoveries from that life system, as well as threats.
Convergent evolution happens all the time with life on earth. The fact the other life has developed in a similar way will not be surprising. It likely wouldn't be identical, but if they use a similar basis for a DNA type thing, or something like that, it won't imply panspermia.
You will dig this if you haven't seen it.
The aliens will not be silicon
implying either panspermia or that there’s something special about this configuration
Or that it's just as inevitable a result of chemical reactions under certain conditions as mixing baking soda and vinegar.
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.
I would bet all the money in my savings that life exists somewhere in our galaxy, but I’m not sure I’d do it for every moon with water
Sigma is basically a representation of certainty that your result isn’t a statistical fluke. It comes from standard deviation in statistics but 1 sigma is 68% certain. 2 sigma is 95%. 3 sigma is 99.7%.
By convention, astronomy uses 3 sigma for “significance,” meaning you almost definitely found something. Particle physics, since it’s usually done in controlled experiments, usually requires 5 sigma (99.99994%).
It’s similar to margin of error in political polls.
Why such different gaps in the metric? Nearly 30% difference between sigmas to less than 5% for the next one.
When you say 3 sigma is that 3+ and 3-?
In manufacturing we call it 6 sigma but it means 3+ and 3-
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
Technically, this is astrochemistry, not astronomy. I don't know what the expected sigma value there is.
Whats less than 0 sigma? I kid but only a little Astrochemistry is fantastically difficult, it involves large networks of reactions, many of which have multiple orders of magnitudes of uncertainty on their rates. Different groups can tey to model the same conditions and end up with over a factor of 1000 difference in the abundences of key tracer speices.
That's why I'm positive but not excited yet. It's a good sign. We need to see if detecting it can be replicated... although I'm not sure how to do that except with the Webb again.
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#
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?
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".
Right, but that's not how science works. You need to exhaust all possible explanations before jumping to wild conclusions.
You don't say, "What's that in the sky? A UFO? Must be aliens!" when there are hundreds, of not thousands of possible reasons why an observer is unable to identify an aerial phenomena, and none of them involve aliens from another galaxy sent to visit us.
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
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
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.
You want to be the one that explains the concept of 'metaphor' to the entire Christian world?
Only some fundamentalists believe that Genesis is literal. And not just Christians.
Just expand on the current one.
God made humans, in his image, because God is a jealous God and wouldn't want humans to be better looking than himself. He filled the world with animals for the humans to hug and eat. On the seventh day He rested.
On the either day, he started on some new planets, then on the ninth day He populated them with more life so that humans might expand to fill the universe he created, and find the life he scattered around for the humans to hug and eat. On the tenth day, he created intelligent life on other planets, because he is all knowing and therefore knows humans won't feel true camaraderie without attacking and wiping out other sentient life forms. On the eleventh day, He declared a public holiday, because He felt like resting but he already decided the Sabbath is every 7 days.
The bible was written by a bunch of religious scholars, and assembled into a series of books. There's no reason they can't "discover" some more books.
I had a Christian relative tell me “Hey I’m interested in science too. Like why did God make the universe so big? I mean… obviously to show his power, but why this big, exactly?”
I told her that she was starting with all the answers already defined and that this is not science.
only made by living things in another world
I am pretty sure we don't know everything about the universe and statements of fact like this should be stated "as far as we know" which really isn't much.
