Signs of alien life on exoplanet K2-18b may just be statistical noise

Apparent signs of alien life on the exoplanet K2-18b may just be statistical noise, according to a new analysis of data from the James Webb Space Telescope.

On 17 April, Nikku Madhusudhan at the University of Cambridge and his colleagues made the stunning claim that K2-18b, a super-Earth 124 light years away, showed strong evidence of an atmosphere containing dimethyl sulphide, a gas that on Earth is only produced by living things.

But Jake Taylor at…