Searching for signs of life on exoplanets is tough.

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• crazycraw@crazypeople.online ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  it is until it isn’t.

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• Multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  As a guy taking the “Great Filter” hypothesis seriously, I would definitely switch the captions in the meme.

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• danc4498@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Please explain. I’m way too stupid.

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  • chosensilence@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    my guess: there is an exoplanet, K2-18b, that was discovered to have an abundance of detectable biosignatures in its atmosphere. at the time, there wasn’t much in the way of another explanation that didn’t involve life. however, astronomers recently found a failed star that is filled with biosignature molecules… so… ah lol. now perhaps K2-18b has another explanation after all.

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    • danc4498@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      So much Astronomy drama!

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    • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Would be funny if that failed star was actually an alien megaproject but we think it’s a natural explanation that means a planet teeming with ancient life is assumed to be barren like the rest of them.

      Is there a name for that, when something very interesting is mistaken for something very uninteresting? Not that a failed star full of biosignature molecules sounds uninteresting, do they have any explanation for that?

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    • Legianus@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Astronomer here, the “life detection” on K2-18b was dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and which is and remains a marker for life. What you get from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is raw data that needs to be treated and calibrated to some extent to be usable in scientific study. This is called data retrieval.

      However, the lead scientist on this paper claiming they found DMS basically used his own very specific way to do it and found very very weak signals in that way. Other scientist tried to both reproduce it in the way he did it and also with their ways to retrieve the data, but couldn’t find anything. So it turns out, it was simply a misdetection.

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    • HonoraryMancunian@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      John Michael Godier will be disappointed

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  • crunchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Methane in Earth’s atmosphere mostly come from cow farts.

    Methane in other atmospheres, as far as we know, doesn’t come from alien cow farts.

    There’s a bunch of stuff that’s made by life, but it can also be made by not-life.

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    • Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I believe the alien cow fart theory!

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    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Burps primarily as far as the cows are concerned.

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  • StalinIsMaiWaifu@lemmygrad.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Biosignature- signs that life was present

    Abiotic exponation- any explanation that doesn’t require life

    Exoplanet- planet outside the solar system

    Telescopes pick up light from these planets, we then analyse the light to see what elements/compounds make up their atmosphere. Say there’s a planet which has a noticeable increase in atmospheric carbon, the scientist in the meme is tempted to say it’s evidence of life (Forrest fire, industrialization, respiration), but it could be a geological process (volcanic eruption)

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• Friendlybirdseggs@sopuli.xyz ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Laughs in europa

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• Skyrmir@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Look for free Oxygen, the only reason it sits around is because of life. Sure, there are lots of forms of life that won’t show up that way, but if you do see it, you know you found life.

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  • icelimit@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    There are entire nebulae with just oxygen floating around.

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    • Lemminary@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      They’re obviously full of plants and algae!

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    • Skyrmir@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Get Back to me when you find it on a planet other than Earth.

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  • sbeak@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Many elements up to iron can be produced from supernovae, including oxygen. And I’m pretty sure a supernova isn’t a very habitable place…

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    • Skyrmir@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Just about every element comes out of a super nova. By the time it’s around a planet, Oxygen has made friends, usually Hydrogen, so it’s no longer free molecules.

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