Scientists find promising hints of life on distant planet K2-18b

Prof Madhusudhan said he was surprised by how much gas was apparently detected during a single observation window. "The amount we estimate of this gas in the atmosphere is thousands of times higher than what we have on Earth," he said.
beanis in space confirmed
- dimethyl sulfide
  It is a component of the smell produced from cooking of certain vegetables (notably maize, cabbage, and beetroot) and seafoods
  dimethyl disulphide
  It is a flammable liquid with an unpleasant, garlic-like odor resembling that of "leaking gas"
  this planet smells like mexican food mixed with farts
  
  :posad: :solidarity: :beanis:

Some naive optimistic part of me wants to believe in the star trek future where, upon discovering life outside of our bubble, humanity will put aside greed and hate.
What is probably more likely is the star trek future where humanity has apocalyptic eugenics wars and nuclear armageddon before it shuns capital.
- the xeelee saga. where humanity eventually genocides/conquers every comparable-level civilization and then whips itself up into a murderous hysteria against the xeelee, a species so ascended they have fucking conquered time. the only thing they fear is dark matter creatures, cos you cant fight them.
  well, the xeelee eventually notice humanity making war on them, go "HUH?! what? why?" and wipe them all out (except for a small remnant they put in a special built reservation/prison. and then they help them get out of the dying universe into a new one).
  humanity never ends up improving.
  
  All I know about Xeelee is Photino Birds are scary as hell
- We won't be able to progress meaningfully as a species until we achieve global communism. These efforts are planetary and generational in scale and require cooperation, not competition
- Humans are space orcs
  
  At least space orcs have more fun with it - instead of "WE PAINTED DA SHIPZ RED TO GO FASTA" we have fuckin Elon in charge of space exploration
- Planet covered in photosynthetic organisms? There would be a lot of oil we can strip mine from there.

five sigma

I would be so happy if we did find life in the universe.
- Non-existence of life outside Earth is more outlandish than there being life out there, isn't it? It should be the default assumption.
  
  That's been the theory, but supposedly more and more scientists have been coming to the belief that if it was out there, we should have observed it in some form by now.
  
  It really just.. isn't. All our knowledge of statistics and probability are practically useless when faced with one, singular distinct data point and no understanding of how life started.
  We're not talking about farcically artificial stakes; if the probability of life appearing on any given square meter of any planet, every second, was, say, the odds of shuffling a specific set of cards. Then, even given 20 sextillion (2*10²²) planets, an optimistic 10³³ seconds until all stars and planets are gone, and 10¹⁴ square meters per planet, the likelihood of life appearing once, anywhere in the universe before heat death is still practically zero.
  But that's all a guess. So long as we don't know the likelihood of life starting, we simply cannot have a 'default assumption', it makes no sense. There is an altogether plausible reality where we are the be all and end all of life in the universe.
- It'd be nice. A good chunk of my climate change despair comes from this planet being the only definitive source of life. Even if we don't find intelligent life, if there's some backup out there for it in general then we aren't extinguishing the only spark in the universe. It's a mixed blessing that this planet is too far away for us to fuck it up too, at least without multi-million year generation ships.
  
  at least without multi-million year generation ships.
  I mean this is probably a bit of an overshoot, its 124 light years. Maybe like 10k years at the current tech
  
  I don't think humans are capable of wiping out life on this planet for good. We'll really mess shit up, there will be untold suffering amongst human and non-human sentient populations alike, but anthropogenic climate change is something that will take care of itself in short (on geological timescales) order once it causes our population to collapse. Life on Earth has survived much worse in the past.

- I want to believe

The Cambridge group has found that the atmosphere seems to contain the chemical signature of at least one of two molecules that are associated with life: dimethyl sulphide (DMS) and dimethyl disulphide (DMDS). On Earth, these gases are produced by marine phytoplankton and bacteria.
Prof Madhusudhan said he was surprised by how much gas was apparently detected during a single observation window.
"The amount we estimate of this gas in the atmosphere is thousands of times higher than what we have on Earth," he said.
SOLARIS BACTERIA WORLD!
- Prof Madhusudhan said he was surprised by how much gas was apparently detected during a single observation window.
  Oh shit it's a planet full of Dirt_Owls

I'm escaping to the one place that hasn't been corrupted by capitalism.

Really hope this is true, but to me, this would just create more questions than it answers wrt intelligent life. The Fermi paradox is still in effect, basically. If there is life that close to us (even single-celled), that implies the universe is absolutely lousy with life, and therefore we should be constantly picking up electromagnetic radiation (radio waves) from other advanced life. Yet we're not.
- Hot take: There’s no such thing as the Fermi Paradox, the day I learned anything about radio emissions is the day that theory became bunk to me, the radio bubble surrounding earth is only 75-light-years wide, and the furthest signals are weak and undetectable even with sensitive equipment
  The theory rests on the assumption that radio is a universal technology and not a short-lived transitional technology, most of this planet already communicates primarily thru microwaves and fiber optics, even if radio is a common “transitional” technology the magnitudes of time implied in trying to find it at the right time in space makes detection nearly impossible
  At a certain distance we can’t distinguish between natural and artificial radio signals, the debates over the WOW! Signal and BLC1 show even if you detect “something” it doesn’t mean much to the wider scientific community
  We JUST started looking for techno-signatures in an organized fashion during the last four years, and even that method suffers from similar problems to the radio method (debate over Taby’s Star for instance)
  We’re a blind, deaf person in the middle of the woods who occasionally whispers Marco Polo every ten years and then wonders where everyone is
  
  Planetary radar from earth emits a 10,000 light year bubble, but yeah, I get what you mean. If anyone were to detect it, would they even interpret it as a valid signal? And would we even still be here by the time they received it? Kinda grim.
- Of the 3.8 billion years that life has existed on earth, we've only been making radio waves for a little over a century
  
  Right, and even in that short time that's still (give or take by a couple decades) enough time to be detectable by other life forms if the distances involved between our world and this one is anything to go by. It's real close.
  Plus, if we assume we're not first (which I doubt) then life starting somewhere else, say 3.9 billion years ago, could mean ET emitting radio waves for 100 million years by now! A time/distance that makes this really look like you could reach out and touch it.
- If this turns out to be an ocean world, that's working toward a partial solution to the Fermi paradox. Life might be common, even around hostile star classes like red dwarfs, but the safest place for life to develop is in a setting where you can't develop fire-based technology. Life could be as intelligent as a dolphin without the ability to do metallurgy or cook food.
  
  Ocean worlds are common + ocean world roughly every 120 light years => billions of ocean worlds with the potential for complex life
  An octopus or something should be able to occasionally climb out of the waves and build a radio. Where is my Octopus version of Prairie Home Companion?!? Get on it you slimy weirdos.
- It is probable that civilizations are either not a common form of life or that electromagnetic radiation is not used to communicate as we understand it for very long in the lifespan of a civilization.
  
  Right, this result (if confirmed) makes either of those much more likely.
  I refuse to believe ET doesn't use radio for something though, even if they're emitting some kind of signature on accident.

"Oh yeah and how does this benefit me personally? Sounds fake! We all know scientists are all commie wokes.
"