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Indian-British Scientist’s Exoplanet Discoveries Stir Hope On Alien Life

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The vast cosmos has always been a source of intrigue, with the quest for life beyond Earth spanning decades. The recent revelation of potential biosignatures on the exoplanet K2-18b has sent ripples through the astronomical community. This has prompted a retrospective look at the past decade of discoveries that have revolutionized our understanding of planetary habitability.

The journey began with NASA’s Kepler mission, which opened the floodgates to the discovery of thousands of exoplanets, planets beyond our solar system. Among these, a select few have been found within the coveted habitable zone, a region around a star where conditions could potentially support liquid water, a key ingredient for life as we know it.

One of the earliest and most celebrated discoveries was Kepler-186f, a rocky planet approximately 500 light-years away from Earth. Similar in size to our home planet and orbiting within its star’s habitable zone, the discovery of Kepler-186f in 2014 marked a significant milestone in the search for Earth-like planets.

New Discoveries

In 2017, the discovery of a system of seven Earth-sized planets orbiting a dim red dwarf named TRAPPIST-1 further piqued the interest of the scientific community. Three of these planets, named e, f, and g, were found within the habitable zone. Their size and proximity to each other made them ideal candidates for atmospheric analysis. However, subsequent studies raised concerns about the extreme stellar flares of their host star, which could potentially strip away their atmospheres, casting a shadow over their habitability.

Closer to home, the discovery of Proxima b in 2016, a mere 4.2 light-years away, sparked global interest. Slightly larger than Earth and orbiting within a potentially temperate zone, Proxima b seemed a promising candidate for life. However, its parent star, Proxima Centauri, is known for its volatility, raising doubts about the planet’s long-term habitability.

In recent years, LHS 1140 b, a dense, rocky planet 40 light-years away, has emerged as a strong contender in the search for extraterrestrial life. With a stable orbit and early indications of an atmosphere, it is a prime target for upcoming investigations by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

The Spotlight on K2-18b

Adding to the growing list of potential life-supporting planets is TOI 700 d, confirmed in 2020 by NASA’s TESS observatory. Receiving nearly the same amount of light as Earth and orbiting a quiet red dwarf, it raises hopes for a relatively undisturbed environment. However, atmospheric data remains elusive, leaving its habitability status uncertain.

The current spotlight, however, is on K2-18b, a sub-Neptune-sized planet first identified in 2015. Located 124 light-years away, the planet has shown signs of water vapor, methane, and carbon dioxide. In 2023, astronomer Nikku Madhusudhan and his team reported faint traces of dimethyl sulfide (DMS), a molecule produced on Earth only by life. New observations in 2025 using a different JWST instrument strengthened the case for DMS and a related compound, dimethyl disulfide (DMDS).

Despite these promising findings, experts urge caution. Dr. Ryan MacDonald of the University of Michigan stated, “These new JWST observations do not offer convincing evidence that DMS or DMDS are present.” Others, like NASA’s Nicholas Wogan, have acknowledged the improved data but stress the need for independent verification.

The consensus among scientists is that while these planets show potential, confirming life—or even just conditions for it—remains an immense challenge. The “five-sigma” statistical confidence required to claim a discovery in physics is still a long way off for most of these detections.

As we continue to explore the cosmos, we are reminded of the words of Dr. Thomas Beatty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who encapsulated the current state of affairs, saying, “Right now, we’re seeing a lot of ‘maybes.’” He added, “But even a maybe is remarkable, considering how far we’ve come.”

The search for extraterrestrial life has transformed our place in the cosmos—from passive observers to active explorers of worlds that, not so long ago, existed only in science fiction. As technology advances and instruments like JWST continue to refine their vision, the quest continues, reminding us of the vastness of the universe and the potential it holds.

New spider species found deep in southern Indiana cave

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IMAGE: This is a female specimen of the newly described rare spider species Islandiana lewisi.

Credit: Dr. Marc Milne

Spiders are ubiquitous within our forests, fields, and backyards. Although you may be used to seeing the beautiful yellow and black spiders of the genus Argiope in your garden, large ground-scurrying wolf spiders in your yard, or spindly cellar spiders in your basement, this new sheet-web-building spider is probably one you haven’t seen before. The reason is that it’s known from a single cave in the world, Stygeon River Cave, in southern Indiana.

The University of Indianapolis assistant professor, Dr. Marc Milne, described the rare species in the open access journal Subterranean Biology with the help of a University of Indianapolis alumnus, Elizabeth Wells, who illustrated the spider for the manuscript.

Sheet weavers, also known as dwarf spiders or money spiders, are minute creatures growing no larger than a few centimetres in length, which makes them particularly elusive. Their peculiar webs are flat and sheet-like, hence their common English name.

The new spider, Islandiana lewisi, is an homage. Milne was shown the spider by a fellow scientist, Dr. Julian Lewis, who noticed the critter on one of his many cave expeditions. In appreciation for his help, Milne and Wells named the spider after Lewis.

This is the fifteenth species in its genus (Islandiana) and the fifth known to live exclusively in caves. It has been over 30 years since the last species has been added to this group.

At about 2 mm in size, Islandiana lewisi is thought to feed on even smaller arthropods, such as springtails living in the debris on the cave floor. It is unknown when it reproduces or if it exists anywhere else. The spider is likely harmless to humans.

The collectors of the spider, Milne and Lewis, described the hostile conditions within the cave, which the new species calls home: “because the cave floods from time to time, the insides were wet, muddy, slippery, and dangerous to walk on without the proper equipment.”

Milne and Lewis found the spider in small, horizontal webs between large, mud-caked boulders in the largest room in the cave. It was collected in October 2016 with the permission of the landowner.

Milne hypothesized that he had collected something special, stating, “I didn’t know what the spider was at first, I just thought it was odd that so many were living within this dark cave with no other spider species around.”

After returning to the lab and inspecting the spider under a microscope, Milne initially misidentified the species. However, when he re-examined it months later, he realized that the species was indeed new to science.

Oldest 8500-year-old Copper Smelting Unit Unearthed in Turkey

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A team of archaeological scientists have found the earliest copper smelting event at the Late Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in central Turkey, confirming the claim of the site’s archaeological importance.

Whether metallurgy was such an exceptional skill to have only been invented once or repeatedly at different locations is therefore still contentious. The proponents of the latter have just provided conclusive evidence of the incidental nature of what was held to be the key find for the single origin of metallurgy claim.

Published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, the re-examination of a c. 8,500-year-old by-product from metal smelting, or ‘slag’, from the site of Çatalhöyük presents the conclusive reconstruction of events that led to the firing of a small handful of green copper minerals.

“From the beginning of our study it was clear that the small handful of ‘slag’ samples were only semi-baked. This indicated a non-intentional, or accidental copper firing event, but the ‘eureka’ moment of how and why that happened arrived quite late”, says Dr Miljana Radivojevic, lead author and researcher at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research of the University of Cambridge.

“The co-authors had a lengthy debate about why the semi-baked copper minerals were deposited in a burial, but then when our pigment specialist (Camurcuo?lu) mentioned earlier examples of green and blue copper pigments in graves and our excavation specialist (Farid) reported firing events that charred bones and materials in the shallow graves, the penny started to drop”, she explains.

“The native copper artefacts from the site of Çatalhöyük were not chemically related to this non-intentionally produced metallurgical slag sample”, adds Professor Ernst Pernicka, of the University of Heidelberg, further strengthening the claim these authors elaborated in the article.

Professor Thilo Rehren, of the UCL Institute of Archaeology, explains the significance of these results: “The invention of metallurgy is foundational for all modern cultures, and clearly happened repeatedly in different places across the globe. As we have seen, not every piece of semi-molten black and green stuff from an excavation is necessarily metallurgical slag. Only materials science methods, in combination with good archaeological records, can distinguish between debris from intentional metal smelting and accidental waste from a destructive fire”.

“It has been a long journey for the materials now identified as vitrified copper minerals to be recognised as once important solely for their colour properties, and we can finally put this debate to rest”, comments Professor Ian Hodder, from Stanford University, who has been directing the excavations of Çatalhöyük for the past 25 years.

Earlier, remains of a majestic female statue was uncovered at the archaeological site of Tayinat in Turkey. Excavations led by University of Toronto archaeologists in southeast Turkey near the Syrian border have unearthed a beautifully carved head and upper torso of a female figure. The remnants are largely intact, although the face and chest appear to have been intentionally – possibly ritually – defaced in antiquity.

The preserved remnants are made of basalt and measure 1.1 metres long and .7 metres wide, suggesting the full figure of the statue would have been four to five metres high. The lower body is missing. The statue was found within a monumental gate complex that would have provided access to the upper citadel of Kunulua – later Tayinat – the capital of the Iron Age Neo-Hittite Kingdom of Patina (ca. 1000-738 BCE). The site is approximately 75 kilometres west of the Syrian city of Aleppo.