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There seemed to be a small sign revealed in April that may change the universe as we know it.

Astronomers discovered just a hint, a glimmer of two molecules rotating in the atmosphere of a distant planet called K2-18B-molecules that are produced on Earth only by living organisms. It was a confusing possibility: the most promising evidence yet in the biological design outside the ground, or the effects of life associated with biological activity.

But just weeks, but the new results indicate that the research should continue.

“It was exciting, but he immediately raised many red flags because this claim of a potential vital.

While the particles identified on the K2-18B through the April-Methyl, DMS, Dimethyl Disulfide, or DMDS- are largely associated with microbial organisms on our planet, scientists indicate that vehicles can also form without life. Now, three teams of astronomers who did not participate in the research, including Welbanks, evaluated the models and data used to discover the original Biosignature and obtained completely different results, which they presented to review the peer.

Meanwhile, the main author of April studyNiko Madosodhan, and his colleagues conducted additional research they say enhance their previous discovery on the planet. Additional notes and research are likely to be from multiple groups of scientists on the horizon.

The research papers that revolve around the K2-18B offer an overview of the actual time. It is a window in the complexities and nuances of how to search for evidence of life outside the ground – and explains the reason for the high burden of proof and difficult to reach.

K2-18B is 124 years of light, and is generally considered a goal worth searching for signs of life. He is believed to be the world of Hessian, a planet completely covered with liquid water with an atmosphere rich in hydrogen, according to Previous research Leaded by Madosodhan, a professor of astronomical physics and external planets science at the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge. In this way, K2-18B attracted attention quickly as a potentially capable place outside our solar system.

Convinced of the K2-18B promise, Madhusudhan and his colleagues in Cambridge used notes on the planet by the largest space telescope in the James Web process, to study the planet more. But two scholars at the University of Chicago – Dr. Rafael Locke, post -PhD researcher in the Department of Astronomy and Astronomical Physics at the university, and Michael Chang, 51 colleagues in Pegasi B / Burbidge Postdoctoral – some problems with what they found.

After reviewing Madhusudhan and his team’s paper in April, which continued their research for 2023, Luque and Zhang noted that the web data looks “noisy”.

The noise, which is caused by defects in the telescope and the rate in which the different light particles reach the telescope, is just one challenge of astronomers when they study distant external planets. Zhang said the noise could distort notes and enter the uncertainty in the data.

Trying to discover certain gases in the atmosphere of remote outdoor planets offer more uncertainty. the The most obvious Zhang said that the features of gas such as a dual methyl sulfide stems from a bond of hydrogen and carbon molecules – a connection that can extend and fold and absorb light in different wavelengths, making it difficult to discover one type of molecules permanently.

“The problem is mainly that every organic molecule has a carbon hydrogen bond,” said Zhang. “There are hundreds of millions of these molecules, so these features are not unique. If you have perfect data, you can most likely distinguish between different particles. But if you do not have perfect data, many particles, especially organic molecules, look very similar, especially in Near infrared”

After that, I also noticed in the paper, as I noticed Luque and Zhang that the perfect temperature of the planet seems to rise sharply from a range of about 250 Kelvin to 300 Kelvin (-9.67 F to 80.33 F or -23.15 C to 26.85 C) study.

Zhang said that such harsh heat can change the way astronomers think about the potential planet’s potential for the planet, especially since cold temperatures continue at the top of the atmosphere – the area that Web can discover – and the surface or ocean below will have higher temperatures.

“This is just a conclusion of the air, but it will definitely affect how we think about the planet in general,” Locke said.

He said that part of the case is that the April analysis did not include the data collected from all the three Webb tools used by the Madhusudhan team over the past few years. Even Locke, Zhang and their colleagues Ticket Combine all the data available to see if they can achieve the same results, or even find a higher amount of methyl dual sulfide. They found “insufficient evidence” for both molecules in the planet’s atmosphere.

Instead, the Luque and Zhang team monitored other molecules, such as ethan, which can fit the same profile. But ethane does not indicate life.

Wilbanks of Arizona and his colleagues, including Dr. Matt Nixon, a post-PhD researcher at the Department of Astronomy at the University of Maryland College Park, found what they consider a basic problem in April paper on K2-18b.

Wilbanks said that anxiety is how Masmosodhan and his team created models to show the molecules that may be in the planet’s atmosphere.

“Each (molecule) is tested one by one against the minimum basis, which means that each model has an artificial advantage: it is the only permitted interpretation,” said Welbanks.

When Welbanks and his team made their king analysisAnd they sought the model from Madosodhan’s study.

Nixon said: “(Madosodhan and his colleagues) did not allow any other chemical types that could produce these signs or small notes,” Nixon said. “So the main thing we wanted to do is assess whether other chemical species can provide adequate data.”

When the model was expanded, Wilbanks said the evidence for a dual -methayl sulfide or methyl seconds is “only disappears”.

Madhusudhan believes that studies that have emerged after April paper are “very encouraging” and “enabling a healthy discussion about the interpretation of our data on K2-18B.”

Refer to Luque and Zhang work and agree that their results do not show a “strong discovery of DMS or DMDS”. When the Madhusudhan team published the paper in April, he said that the notes had reached The level of the three importance is importantOr 0.3 % possibility that discoveries occurred by chance.

As for a scientific discovery, it is unlikely to have occurred by chance, the notes should meet the threshold of five rays, or less than a possibility of 0.00006 % that the notes occurred by chance. Wellanx said that meeting such a threshold requires many steps, including repeated discoveries of the same molecule using multiple telescopes and excluding potential non -biological sources.

While such evidence can be found in our lives, it is unlikely to be the moment of Eureka and the most slow that requires consensus among astronomers, physicists, biologists and chemists.

“We did not reach this level of evidence in any of our studies,” Madosodhan wrote in an email. “We found evidence only in or less than 3-Sigma in our previous studies (Madeusudhan et al

In response to the WelBanks team, Madhusudhan, his colleagues in Cambridge, made another authorship Manuscript Expanding the search on K2-18B To include 650 types of molecules. They have presented the new analysis of the look.

“This is the biggest search for chemical signatures on an external planet so far, using all data available for K2-18B and research through 650 molecules,” said Madosodhan. “We find that DMS is still a promising candidate molecule on this planet, although more observations are required to reveal the company as we have noticed in our previous studies.”

WelBanks and Nixon were happy that Madhusudhan and his colleagues have eaten the concerns that were raised, but they feel that the new paper is effective on the central allegations submitted in the original April study.

“The new implicit paper admits that the discovery of DMS/DMDS was not strong, yet it still depends on the same defective statistical framework and a selective reading of its own results,” Wilbanks said in an email. “Although the tone is more cautious (sometimes), the methodology still blocks the real level of uncertainty. The statistical importance that was required in the previous work was the product of arbitrary modeling decisions that were not recognized.”

Locke said the new Cambridge team is a step in the right direction because it explores the other potential chemical biosignatures.

“But I think that has decreased in the range,” Locke said. “I think it restricts herself a lot to be refuting on the Welbanks.”

However, astronomers who study K2-18B agree that moving forward in the search for external planets contributes to the scientific process.

“I think it is just a good and healthy scientific discourse to talk about what is going on with this planet,” Wilbanks said. “Regardless of what one group author says at the present time, we do not have a silver bullet. But this is exactly the reason that this is exciting, because we know that we are the closest that we were (to find biosignature), And I think we may get it during our lives, but now, we are not there. This is not a failure. We test bold ideas. ”