While K2-18b continues to intrigue scientists and the public alike with the possible detection of biologically relevant sulphur compounds such as DMS and DMDS, any serious interpretation must begin not with biosignatures, but with a clear understanding of how such a planet might evolve. This article explores several credible evolutionary […]
Life
K2-18b, DMS, and DMDS: Unravelling the Sulphur Signature Beyond the Hype
The recent announcement from Cambridge researchers that dimethyl sulphide (DMS) and dimethyl disulphide (DMDS) have been detected in the atmosphere of the exoplanet K2-18b to a significance of three sigma has reignited intense speculation about alien life. This detection, derived from the James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) MIRI instrument, has […]
Abiogenesis
Introduction There is a Youtube video by Anton Petrov at the end of this article ( I have also added a couple of his other videos on other discoveries about simple organisms) with an important update on how some simple organisms are rewqriting what we thought we knew and giving […]
Humanity to Mars
ARTICLE IN PROGRESS, IT WILL UPDATED AND EXTENDED PERIODICALLY. Getting to Mars The race is on – within 20 years humanity will have established itself on the lunar surface, with at least 1 permanent settlement, likely more as the Chinese go it alone, but the plans also involve human boots […]
Revisiting where we may find life and the Drake equation
Where should we look for life? Developed in 1961 by the late Frank Drake, a giant of the SETI community, it was an initial attempt to ascertain how many intelligent civilisations might exist that humanity could potentially communicate with. Every parameter was a best guess, nothing definitive was known, and […]
Impacts – how often, how deadly, can we prevent them?
Over the years of humanity looking to the heavens we have been aware of ‘stuff’ burning up in the atmosphere, in the early days we did not know what this was or where it came from, there are stories of “stones from the heavens” thrown by angry gods and in […]
Colonising Mars
There is a lot of debate about colonising Mars, in fact the conversations have been had for more than 100 years, but realistic plans to at least land humans on Mars are around 50 years old. In 1976 the debate grew when NASA successfully landed the Viking 1 and 2 […]
Life in the Universe : Where is it; Will it be intelligent; Can we Communicate; Can we meet?
Humans have pondered these questions about the Universe, to one degree or another, for at least several hundred years, perhaps thousands of years, yet despite the advances in society, science and our overall understanding of the Universe, we are still no closer to answering these questions, or are we closer […]