As A Certain Vulcan Might Say...Fascinatng.

The James Webb Telescope hasn't made anything near the splash that Hubble made when it started sending back all those incredible images of the universe back in the early and mid 90s.

My guess is that the instrumentation is more geared to scientific inquiry than eyeball level imagery.

In short, Webb isn't as sexy as Hubble.

 

Every one of those dots is a galaxy. Billions of stars in each.

Standing on the ground, you could raise your arm over your head, extend it out as far as possible and cover the pictured patch of sky with your thumb.

One of several "Deep Field" images from Hubble.

Sexy indeed.

That may all be about to change.  It seems that one of those less sexy instruments may just have found the first evidence for life outside of our little blue marble.

See, there's this substance,  dimethyl sulfide, that as far as we know can only be produced by a biological function.  In short, on this planet, if you find dimethyl sulfide, you find life.

It seems that the James Webb telescope has detected the presence of dimethyl sulfide on an exoplanet with the less than roll off the tongue name of K2-18 b.

So...aliens?

Not so fast, Mr. Data.  Just because dimethyl sulfide only occurs through a biological process on this planet, there's years of work ahead to determine if its presence on K2-18 b is due to a similar biological explanation.  There's always the possibility that some unknown to us process is occurring on K2-18 b that is responsible for producing the stuff without biology being involved at all.

Still, can you imagine what this might mean?  A decade from now, we may be able to answer the question "are we alone?" with a big, fat "Nope."  

While Hubble may have brought space down to us, Webb might give us the best reason yet to keep reaching for the stars.