Life may exist right under our noses in the Solar System—the moons of Jupiter and Saturn are of great interest. Europa and Enceladus may harbor vast subsurface oceans where at least microbial life could be possible. Thanks to new data obtained with the James Webb Space Telescope, scientists have discovered compelling evidence of extraterrestrial life on one exoplanet. But is water truly a necessary ingredient for life? A new study has determined that ionic liquids can form where liquid water cannot, thanks to their ability to remain liquid over a wide range of temperatures and pressures. These ionic liquids may ultimately support biomolecules such as proteins.
Planet K2-18b is located in the constellation Leo, 124 light-years from Earth. In 2019, after comparing data from the Kepler, Spitzer, and Hubble space telescopes, two independent scientific studies concluded that K2-18b’s atmosphere contains significant amounts of water vapor, and that conditions are conducive to the formation of liquid water. In 2020, it was hypothesized that K2-18b may harbor a habitable water ocean.
Stephan’s Quintet is a group of five galaxies in the constellation Pegasus. This is the largest image to date from the James Webb Space Telescope, assembled from 1,000 individual files. NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI
In 2023, after analyzing data from the James Webb Space Telescope, methane and carbon dioxide molecules were detected in the planet’s atmosphere, as well as signs of the possible presence of a significant marker of life—dimethyl sulfide. This may indicate the existence of life in the hypothetical ocean on the surface of K2-18b.
And finally, in April 2025, the results of additional measurements are published, which confirm a significant amount of dimethyl sulfide and/or dimethyl disulfide in the atmosphere.
Completion of testing of the James Webb telescope (February 2020). NASA/Chris Gunn
“On Earth, dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide are produced only by life, primarily microbial life, such as marine phytoplankton. While an unknown chemical process may be the source of these molecules in K2-18b’s atmosphere, the results provide the strongest evidence yet that life can exist on a planet outside our solar system,” according to a paper by scientists from the University of Cambridge.
It was also discovered that the concentration of these compounds in the atmosphere of K2-18b greatly exceeds that of Earth, reaching more than ten parts per million, while on Earth it is less than one part per million.
However, as usual, the scientists are hedging their bets. One of the team members, Professor Nikku Madhusudhan, says that despite the “cautious optimism” surrounding the results, astronomers need to obtain more data.
Solar System. Pixabay / Valera268268
And yet he states: “Given everything we know about this planet, a world with an ocean teeming with life is the scenario that best fits the data we have,” referring to K2-18b.
K2-18b is larger than Earth, with a radius 2.6 times greater than Earth’s and a mass 8.6 times greater. However, the planet is located very close to its star, a small red dwarf, and within its habitable zone. This suggests that the exoplanet receives approximately the same amount of starlight and heat as Earth receives from the Sun. K2-18b orbits its “sun” in just 33 days.
Most curiously, there’s a high probability that K2-18b is completely covered by a layer of water tens of kilometers thick. Based on the data obtained, water could make up approximately half of its mass. By comparison, the proportion of Earth’s water, despite its seemingly large volume, is quite small—only 0.02 percent of our planet’s mass.
An image of the Andromeda Nebula, galaxy M31, taken with the Subaru Telescope’s HSC camera. HSC Project/NAOJ
However, K2-18b is far from the only planet hypothetically capable of supporting life; scientists know of dozens of such worlds. For example, Ross 128 b is an exoplanet in the Ross 128 star system in the constellation Virgo, located approximately 11 light-years away. The planet is potentially suitable for life. However, there is a drawback: its mass is almost one and a half times greater than Earth’s. Temperatures there, according to preliminary estimates, could range from 0 to 21 degrees Celsius.
A patch of sky around the red dwarf star Ross 128 in the constellation Virgo. ESO
Life may exist right under our noses in the Solar System—the moons of Jupiter and Saturn are of great interest in this regard. Europa and Enceladus may harbor vast subsurface oceans where at least microbial life could be possible.
Saturn’s rings. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI
But is water really a necessary ingredient for life? Aliens may swim in truly exotic bodies of water. New research suggests that other liquids could support life on worlds beyond our own.
“We think of water as essential for life because that’s what life on Earth requires. But if we consider a more general definition, we see that we need a liquid in which metabolism can occur for life to occur,” said study leader Rachana Agrawal, a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The team’s paper was published on August 11, 2025, in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Agrawal and her team studied ionic liquids—salts that remain liquid at temperatures below their boiling point (below 100 degrees Celsius)—as a potential habitat for life. According to the researchers’ laboratory experiments, ionic liquids could likely form from components found on rocky planets and their moons.
Most importantly, the team determined that ionic liquids can form where liquid water cannot, thanks to their ability to remain liquid over a wide range of temperatures and pressures. Ultimately, these ionic liquids can support biomolecules such as proteins.
A new study has shown that water may not be the only liquid capable of supporting life. José-Luis Olivares, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“This could significantly increase the habitable zone of all rocky worlds,” Agrawal said.
In the scientific world, this discovery could be called a happy accident. The team initially intended to investigate signs of life on Venus by searching for a way to collect and evaporate sulfuric acid from its clouds. But after conducting evaporation experiments, the researchers discovered that a liquid layer always remained. They determined that this layer was an ionic liquid formed by the reaction of sulfuric acid with glycine.
“From there, we tried to imagine what this might mean,” Agrawal said. “Sulfuric acid is found in volcanoes on Earth, and organic compounds are found on asteroids and other planetary bodies. This led us to think about the possibility of ionic liquids forming and naturally occurring on exoplanets.”
Of course, more research is needed. “We’ve just opened a Pandora’s box of new research,” said MIT professor Sara Seager, a co-author of the study. “It’s been quite a journey.”
A study published July 28 in the International Journal of Astrobiology explores the possibility of life on Mars, as well as on Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus. These icy worlds are relatively hostile to life as we know it, at least on the surface. But beneath the surface, they contain vast quantities of liquid or frozen water. The researchers investigated whether cosmic radiation could activate chemical reactions in the water sufficiently to support biological activity.
A new study suggests that cosmic radiation could potentially provide the energy needed to generate extraterrestrial life deep below the surface of icy worlds such as Mars, Europa and Enceladus.
When scientists search for signs of life beyond Earth, they first check for alien worlds within the “Goldilocks zone”—the region around a star where sunlight doesn’t make temperatures too hot or too cold for liquid water to exist on the planet’s surface. But a group of researchers has proposed another region where life could exist: the “radiolithic habitable zone,” where cosmic rays (also known as cosmic radiation) could generate enough energy to support life deep underwater or beneath ice.
A new study suggests that cosmic rays could facilitate the emergence of life beyond traditional habitable zones. DrPixel/Getty Images
“Life may exist in more places than we ever imagined,” said Dimitra Atri, an astrophysicist at New York University in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and a co-author of the new study. “Instead of looking only for warm, sunny planets, we can now consider cold, dark places if they have water beneath the surface and are exposed to cosmic rays.”
Cosmic rays consist of high-energy particles and atomic nuclei that travel through space at nearly the speed of light. They are produced by the activity of stars, supernovae, and, in some cases, black holes. On Earth, most cosmic rays do not penetrate our planet’s thick atmosphere. But on planets with thinner atmospheres, such as Mars, they can reach the surface and possibly even underground.
See also... New method for observing individual atoms confirms century-old quantum mechanical theory |
In this study, the team used computer modeling to simulate how much energy this cosmic radiation could deliver to subsurface ice and water on Mars and planets like Jupiter’s moon Europa. They found that some high-energy particles can penetrate beneath the surface. Once there, the rays would break down existing water molecules, releasing electrons in a process called electrolysis. This could potentially generate enough energy to support—and perhaps even initiate—life.
Researchers have predicted that Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus has the greatest potential to support life, followed by Mars and Europa. Astrobiologists plan to study these planets in more detail in the coming years, using data from telescopes such as the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array and probes such as NASA’s Europa Clipper, currently en route to Jupiter’s moon.
However, the new research also has implications for the search for life beyond our solar system. “This discovery changes our understanding of where life might exist,” Atri said in a statement.
In another study, using ultraviolet light, scientists detected small amounts of a superalcohol in gaseous form. The scientists synthesized methanetetrol, an elusive alcohol that could form the basis of alien life. Chemists have synthesized a “superalcohol” previously thought too unstable to exist. The molecule formed under extreme, “space” conditions and may shed light on the complex reactions necessary for the origin of extraterrestrial life.
The superalcohol, called methanetetrol, is the only alcohol with four oxygen and hydrogen groups around a single carbon atom. It is believed to be a key building block of life in the universe. “This work expands the boundaries of our knowledge of cosmic chemistry,” said study co-author Ralph Kaiser, a chemist at the University of Hawaii.
Methanetetrol is a type of orthoacid, a class of compounds considered critically important in the chemistry of early life. However, these compounds are difficult to isolate and study. For example, the large number of oxygen bonds in methanetetrol makes it extremely unstable and prone to degradation in the absence of certain environmental conditions.
According to the statement, methanetetrol does not occur naturally on Earth, but scientists have been theorizing about its existence and chemical structure for over a century.
To simulate the formation of methanetetrol in space, the researchers placed water and carbon dioxide in a cryocooler set to minus 451 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 268 degrees Celsius) and then exposed the mixture to cosmic-ray-like radiation to trigger the necessary chemical reactions to fuse the molecules.
Scientists have suspected the existence of methanetetrol for over a century, but it does not occur naturally on Earth. Andrew Turner
Using ultraviolet light, scientists detected small amounts of super alcohol in gaseous form.
“This work takes experimental and detection capabilities to the final frontier, to the next level, beyond what could be achieved previously due to the lack of experimental and computational approaches,” Kaiser said in another statement.
Now that astrobiologists have the ability to study methanetetrol, they can learn how the alcohol is synthesized and reacts with other molecules in the coldest parts of space, such as in dust clouds where stars and planets form.
“Here’s this compact carbon-oxygen molecule that just wants to explode,” study co-author Ryan Fortenberry, an astrochemist at the University of Mississippi, said in a statement. “And when it does, if you give it any energy, it forms water, hydrogen peroxide, and a host of other potentially life-enhancing compounds.”
Methanetetrol is a kind of “seed molecule of life” that could become a building block of life throughout the universe. “It’s something that could give rise to more complex chemical processes if given the chance.”
Fortenberry compared alcohol to an acorn, which cannot turn into a tree on its own, but requires certain conditions and reactions to do so.
Chemists concluded that since methanetetrol can form in laboratory conditions similar to those found in space, it could also form in space. “If we find places where methanetetrol forms naturally, we’ll know that place has potential building blocks for life,” Fortenberry said.
The results of research published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society in April 2024 prove that some exoplanets, especially those orbiting cooler red dwarfs, may have purple vegetation rather than the greenish one found on Earth.
A Cornell University study has found that a distinctive purple “light fingerprint” could be a sign of extraterrestrial life. Although Earth is often called the “pale blue dot” thanks to its abundant oceans, most of the planet’s land mass is green. Plants use chlorophyll (which absorbs red and blue light but reflects green) to capture solar energy and use carbon and water to produce nutrients in a process known as photosynthesis. While this fourth-grade biology lesson describes the primary way plants thrive on our planet, life on other Earth-like exoplanets (especially those orbiting red dwarf stars) might use a completely different method—one that would color the entire world purple.
Scientists from Cornell University have analyzed how alien plants that use infrared radiation for photosynthesis could transform the hues of alien worlds. These bacterial species, including phototrophic anoxygenic bacteria and photoheterotrophic bacteria, could emit a characteristic “light signature” that could be detected by future observatories, including the European Southern Observatory’s Extremely Large Telescope.
“Purple bacteria can thrive in a wide range of conditions, making them a prime candidate for life, capable of dominating a wide variety of worlds,” Cornell University graduate student Lygia Fonseca Coelho said in a press release. “They already thrive here in certain niches… just imagine if they didn’t have to compete with green plants, algae, and bacteria: a red sun could create the most favorable conditions for photosynthesis.”
To understand the color and chemical composition of such a planet, Coelho and her colleagues collected 20 samples of purple sulfur and purple nonsulfur bacteria from various locations around the world, including hydrothermal vents and even ponds near the Cornell campus. These bacteria use low-energy red and infrared wavelengths for a process similar to photosynthesis, and while purple bacteria may occupy their biological niche today, some scientists suggest that ancient Earth was likely much more purple than it is today.
A 2022 study at the University of Maryland examined why plants reflect green light, even though the sun technically emits most of its light in the blue-green spectrum. The scientists argued that the light-sensitive molecule retinal (which evolved on Earth before chlorophyll) absorbs green light and reflects red and violet light, which would appear purple to the human eye.
When the chlorophyll molecule evolved on Earth—largely due to rising oxygen levels—the sun’s green light was already being absorbed by plants using retinal. So, the molecule instead absorbed all other available light. Even though the sun emits less light in this spectrum, chlorophyll was part of a more sophisticated and efficient photosynthetic system, and Earth’s green hue began to emerge.
But on oxygen-poor exoplanets orbiting cool red dwarfs, things could be completely different. Coelho developed various models of Earth-like planets in various wet and dry environments, and many of the simulated “light fingerprints” turned out to be purple.
“If purple bacteria thrive on the surface of a frozen Earth, an ocean world, a snowball Earth, or a modern Earth orbiting a cooler star,” Coelho said in a press release. “We now have the tools to find them.”
Comment on Facebook* The owner of the Meta company is recognized as extremist in Russia and is banned.See also... Complete list of HTML/Javascript event handlers with examples List of required documents for a website in the Russian Federation |
