By Scott Sullivan
Editor
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Lily Tomlin won a Tony Award 40 years ago for Best Actress in the one-woman play “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in Universe.”
Now NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has provided a sign, but only that, on the planet K2-18b. It’s 124 light years away, so start packing now.
New observations suggest K2-18b’s atmosphere contains dimethyl sulfate molecules. That’s consistent with the presence of a global ocean, the Washington Post’s John Achenbach reports.
On Earth, DMS is produced by the decay of marine phytoplankton and other living microbes; no other source is known. Ergo …? Not so fast.
Per a peer-reviewed report in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, its presence presents more questions than answers. But its authors claim it’s the best evidence yet of a possible “biosignature” on another planet.
Though K2-18b is 8.6 times the mass of Earth, it can only be seen — even through the Webb — interrupting light from mother star.
From that, a team led by Cambridge University astrophysicist Nikku Madhusudhan has identified possible in the atmosphere of a habitable, or “Goldilocks,” zone planet — not too near nor far from the heat of its mother star, but just right.
This could be “potentially one of the biggest landmarks in the history of science,” Madhusudhan said. Or not.
In 2023 he and colleagues reported two instruments on the Webb had detected carbon dioxide and methane on K2-18b, plus hints of DMS.
His team followed up by observing the planet for eight hours last April using the Webb’s mid-infrared instrument. The resulting data boosted their confidence that DMS or an almost identical molecule, dimethyl disulfide, are present there.
“A molecule glimpsed in the air of a planet 729 trillion miles away is a thin reed upon which to rest what would be the historic discovery of alien life,” cautions Achenbach.
Why let skepticism stand in the way of rushing to rash conclusions? Another question is whether that alien life, if it does exist, is intelligent. Which got me thinking about U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Holland), whose last sighting in these parts was touring washout sites. These were good spots for photo opps if you’re planning to run for U.S. Senate two years from now.
“After 25 years without a conservative voice in the Senate,” Huizenga posted April 14 on X, the ex-Twitter, “Michigan needs someone who can win in order to fight for our state, fight for small businesses and fight for President Trump’s agenda.”
Yup, the gravel business scion turned career politician is running towards something, not away from Saugatuck-Douglas Indivisibles’ calls for him to speak at a town hall meeting.
These are good things for a DOGE apologist to dodge, as no doubt Indivisibles would pepper him with questions about Trump’s federal layoffs and market-tanking tariffs.
So say they do find phyloplankton on K2-18b. How intelligent would that be? A fair comparison would be to Plankton, the SpongeBob SquarePants cartoon series villain who wants to steal Mr. Krabs’ Krabbie Patty formula, then drive his restaurant competitor out of business. It would be like buying your own social media platform, then taking free reign to exploit its addicts.
Should Huizenga lose to Mike Rogers, Tudor Dixon, some other GOP hopeful or even a Democrat, Trump will likely reward his fealty by making him ambassador to our new colony not in Canada or Greenland, but on K2-18b.
As he fight-fight-fights for the phyloplankton, Huizenga’s work here will also be rewarded in the form of a $7.2-million federal grant to reconnect the 1988 Lakeshore Drive washout with a new road inland, built with Huizenga Gravel naturally.
Meanwhile the search for intelligent life goes on.
