College of Natural & Agricultural Sciences

LIVE SCIENCE - The trendiest planet in the universe right now is K2-18b, a potentially habitable world swirling around a small, red star in the constellation Leo. Located 124 light-years from Earth, the mysterious planet will never host human visitors — but a recent glimpse with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) hints that alien...

THE INDEPENDENT UK - It’s one of humanity’s oldest questions. Are we alone? Is there life elsewhere in our galaxy or the universe? Scientists last week made a stunning announcement that they had found the “strongest evidence yet” of life beyond our solar system. A team of astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope said...

CNN - A team of astronomers have detected what they call the most promising signs to date of a possible biosignature, or signs of past or present life linked to biological activity, on an exoplanet named K2-18b. But the study authors, and other experts, remain cautious and have not declared a definitive discovery of life...

NEWSWEEK - Scientists say they may have detected signs of biological activity on a planet outside our solar system, in what some describe as the "strongest evidence" so far in the ongoing search for life beyond Earth. "This is a question humanity has been asking for thousands of years, and if you're witnessing it for...

NPR - An ocean world that's teeming with microbes — and who knows what other kinds of life — is currently the best explanation for some chemical signatures that the James Webb Space Telescope has spotted in the atmosphere of a distant planet. That's according to Nikku Madhusudhan of the University of Cambridge's Institute of...

EARTH.COM - Strange as it sounds, some scientists think the earliest life forms on Earth may have painted our planet in shades of purple rather than the green we see today. This idea, known as the Purple Earth hypothesis, suggests that single-celled organisms depended on a less complex molecule than chlorophyll to harness sunlight. NASA-supported...

THE DEBRIEF - On New Year’s Eve 2023, amid appearances by Joss Stone and Rod Steward on Jools Holland’s holiday ‘Musical Hootenanny’, a major 2024 revelation was alluded to: soon, we might learn that we aren’t alone in the universe. The insinuations that the discovery of alien life could be imminent all followed news from...