NASA Has No Comment on New Signs of Alien Life

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, scientists have discovered the strongest signs of alien life to date — but NASA has nothing to say about it, even though the research was conducted using its flagship space telescope.

Following news that a team of Cambridge astronomers had discovered the "strongest hints yet" of atmospheric biosignatures — better known as "signs of life" — on the watery exploplanet K2-18b within our galaxy's "habitable zone," the space agency has chosen not to comment.

Instead, a NASA spokesperson offered a boilerplate response about the Webb telescope's "challenging" search for life when Washington Post reporters asked about the biosignatures that could point to marine algae or other microbes.

"This requires tens to hundreds of hours of observing time for a single planet, the results may not be conclusive due to evolution of the star and planet atmosphere over time, and the planets Webb can search orbit relatively inhospitable stars," the statement noted. "Finding life elsewhere in the universe will also be a process, and detection of a single potential biosignature would not constitute discovery of life."

To be fair, the researchers behind this incredible discovery on K2-18b aren't rushing to claim that they've found definitive proof of alien life either.

During a press conference, Cambridge astronomer Nikku Madhusudhan, who worked on the research and was lead author on a new paper about it in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, insisted that he and his team are not jumping to conclusions.

"It is in no one’s interest to claim prematurely that we have detected life," Madhusudhan said, per the New York Times.

Still, the astronomer has every right to be excited about his team's detection of the chemical compounds dimethyl sulfide or dimethyl disulfide, which on Earth are only produced by life.

"This is a revolutionary moment," Madhusudhan enthused. "It's the first time humanity has seen potential biosignatures on a habitable planet."

Notably, NASA had already pointed the Webb and Hubble telescopes at K2-18b and found that its atmosphere contained "carbon-bearing molecules including methane and carbon dioxide." This new finding from Cambridge, however, is the most compelling potential biosignature discovery to date.

After spending years analyzing the chemical signals for dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide, which on Earth are responsible for the ocean's unique scene, Madhusudan and his colleagues got the chance to use the JWST's sensitive scientific instruments to check out K2-18b as it passed in front of the star it orbits.

This time around, the biosignature signals were basically screaming at the Cambridge team, and according to Madhusudan, the astronomers "spent an enormous amount of time just trying to get rid of the signal" to make sure it wasn't a fluke.

While there are plenty of reasons NASA wouldn't want to declare with a loudspeaker that scientists have discovered alien life — including, but not limited to, the potential biosignatures being found by non-American researchers — it's still kind of a bummer that the agency isn't engaging more about this new find.

One thing's for sure: NASA scientists are almost definitely buzzing behind the scenes. Wanna let us know what they're saying? Email us at tips@futurism.com — we can keep you anonymous.

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