First possible signs of other life on exoplanets...

  In my classes, over the past two weeks, the topic of other life in the universe became a topic everyone is interested in. Students asked for my opinion, and I don't hesitate in telling them that for me, and most serious scientists I know in all fields, I would be shocked if there WASN'T simple life all over the place throughout this universe! I'm talking bacterial or single-cell type life. Now, 'intelligent' - or I use the term 'complex' - life, like us or animals or plants, that is a different story that I don't think anyone has a good grasp of. This is because complex life requires hundreds of millions of years for evolution to do its thing, and that then requires very long periods of time of relative stability, which does not happen for most stars and planets, so that will be a much more challenging thing to wrap our heads around. 

But bacterial type life? We estimated there could be some hundred billion trillion planets in the observable universe! And already many exoplanets have been observed in 'Goldilock's zones where there can be liquid water and other chemicals necessary for life (as we know it). The ingredients for life are all over the place when astronomers look, including water everywhere and even amino acids floating around! If there is any level of environmental and planetary stability for relatively short periods of time, simple life would have a chance to natur ally evolve from basic organic chemistry. If interested in this type of research, check out astrobiology. 

Below is a snippet I found about the first potential evidence suggesting there could be other life on exoplanets: 

James Webb Space Telescope has just delivered the strongest hint yet of alien life! Scientists studying the distant exoplanet K2-18 b (about 120 light-years away in the constellation Leo) have detected methane, carbon dioxide, and a possible trace of dimethyl sulfide (DMS)—a molecule that, on Earth, is produced almost exclusively by living organisms such as marine plankton.

K2-18 b sits comfortably in the habitable zone of its star and may be a vast ocean-covered “Hycean world,” a type of planet scientists believe could host microbial life beneath a hydrogen-rich atmosphere. The discovery was made by analyzing the planet’s atmosphere as starlight passed through it during a transit, allowing researchers to identify its chemical fingerprints.

While scientists stress that this is not yet definitive proof of life, the presence of these molecules together makes K2-18 b one of the most compelling candidates ever found for extraterrestrial biology. Future observations by the James Webb Space Telescope will attempt to confirm whether the dimethyl sulfide signal is real and determine if biological processes could truly be responsible.

If confirmed, this discovery could mark the first real evidence that life exists beyond Earth, a finding that would forever change our understanding of the universe and our place within it.

                                         From viewspace.org.