I just can’t compute how this is possible. How can a telescope detect a gas, which isn’t even visible to the naked eye, on a planet that is an incomprehensible distance away.
[Source](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66786611)
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Astronomer here.
It **has not definitively detected this gas, dimethyl sulfide.** The scientific paper makes no claim that it has been detected, and neither does the official press release. The data *might* hint at it. Or it could be a fluke. It’s at the level of the noise. They need more data to be able to tell. It could **very easily** turn out to be nothing.
There are also lots of reasons to think there is no life on this planet. The possible liquid ocean is under a thick atmosphere, which means it’s much hotter and at higher pressure than oceans on Earth. This is a problem for any life we understand, because proteins like DNA and RNA denature at these temperatures. So it’s waaaaaaaaayyyy too early to go around saying life has been found.
Reading the paper, it looks to me like the scientists are laying the groundwork for asking for more telescope time with a different instrument setup to look for this molecule specifically. Good luck to them.
Anyway… all molecules interact with different wavelengths/colors of light in different ways. They leave “fingerprints” on the light where they have absorbed certain colors. The scientists who studied K2-18b think there could be hints of the fingerprints of a molecule called dimethyl sulfide, which on Earth is made by life. If it turns out that it is on K2-18b after all, that would be exciting because we don’t know a good way to make lots of that molecule with other processes besides life. Which doesn’t necessarily mean there’s no other way to make it!
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