[AltoLXI]

Originally Posted by ValarMorghulis

Humanity is all about pushing the envelop of existence, quenching our curiosity and asking the questions. Some might help humans today, others in the future.

Thanks for the article links.

The transdisciplinary approach for solving complex problems and fostering innovation leading to solutions to the problems on our planet is commendable.

[theabstractmind]

Folks. None of us are native speakers of English. Having said that, in a scientific terminology, this won't be accepted as evidence of life. I'm no scientist, but as the scientist himself says in the video, they have not found life, yet. There are signs which point to life, as we know it. However, the finding needs to be researched and validated.

So, the possibility of alien life - well, is still a possibility. The intention of the title may not be misleading, but to a keen reader, it comes across as though life has been found in another planet, which is not true.

All parties - chill out!

[SrichakradharV]

What really surprises me is that we often tend to look at life outside of Earth, with the same parameters that govern us here. We look for the possibility of water as if the presence of water is required for whatever life is thriving at the other planet/ moon.

We discard some of the other planets for the absence an atmosphere or that of the ozone layer! ! Why can not life other than what we know of is present in these space bodies?

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by SrichakradharV

Why can not life other than what we know of is present in these space bodies?

It’s been a topic of discussion amongst scientist for as long as we have been looking for other life amongst the universe.

We can’t rule it out, the problem is what to look for! I think the argument is it is more likely to find life that has at least some of the same basics as we see/saw on earth, than to look for something completely unknown. Again, you would not know what to look for.

Jeroen

[CarNerd]

How on earth can one detect a molecule of Dimethyl Sulfide (DMS) located on a planet 120 light-years away? How accurate is the detection? How can anyone prove that the molecule detected is exactly DMS without physical verification? Before that, how does one come up with 120 light-years distance? What's the technique behind it? I'm curious as sound waves can be used to measure distance by detecting and calculating the time between sending and receiving sound waves. How is it done with light?

[FlankerFury]

I'll try and answer some of them. I'll attach a couple of links to good articles on this topic at the end in case one wishes to read further.

I'm curious as sound waves can be used to measure distance by detecting and calculating the time between sending and receiving sound waves. How is it done with light?

So what you said about sound waves, that's exactly how a SONAR works. A Light Year on the other hand is completely different, it is defined as the distance travelled by light in vacuum in 365 days.

Speed of light = 3x10⁸ m/s
Number of seconds in a year, it's a pretty big number, 365 days in a year, 24 hours in a day, 60mins in an hour and finally 60 seconds in a minute.

Once you multiply all of these numbers together and convert the metres into kilometres, it comes out to about 10 trillion kilometres (there are 12 zeroes in a trillion!).

Since using a number this MASSIVE is impractical, astronomers use the unit Light Years instead to make it manageable.

Originally Posted by CarNerd

...how does one come up with 120 light-years distance? What's the technique behind it?

Now this gets a little complicated. Astronomers measure this in parsecs or parallax seconds, using a method known as triangulation.

Here's a visualisation to make it a bit easier


Think of the Earth's orbit as a ruler, astronomers observe a star at two different times, generally 6months apart because by then, Earth is at the opposite side in its orbit.

Since the Earth's position has changed, the stars position appears to have changed as well, this is known as parallax.
To borrow NCERT's definition of parallax, it's the apparent shift of an objects position when viewed from different positions.

simplified visualisation of parallax

Now, measuring this distance physically is impossible, so astronomers measure the angle instead. (Even this isn't in standard degrees, instead it's measured in arcseconds)

Well, how does an angle gives us distance? Trigonometry.

We know the radius of Earth's orbit around the Sun and we know the angle, by using trigonometric functions, usually the tangent function, we get the distance between Sun and the star.

This distance is then converted into light years.
____
Here are those links

astronomy.com/parsec and it's measurement

space.com/parsec

earthsky.org/ parsec

[freelancer6202]

Originally Posted by CarNerd

How on earth can one detect a molecule of Dimethyl Sulfide (DMS) located on a planet 120 light-years away?

Spectrography is the technique to detect molecules. Its commonly used technique in biochemistry labs for qualitative analysis. Scientists study light wavelengths of light emitted and compare it with known samples and thats how they detect similar molecules, compounds, gases. Although its not 100% accurate but gives a pretty good idea of situations and combining it with information from other sources gives a clear picture. Like Disulphide molecule discovered in a planet that lies in a habitable zone and has water in form of ice or vapour, all these evidences together leads to one conclusion and which still is a possibility.

[dsuman]

Space and anything related are my favorite subjects - Space travel, life beyond Earth, Aliens/Extra Terrestrials, UFOs.

We would be naive to assume that Human Race is the only life form in this unlimited Universe. Equally Fascinating is that a Man made equipment (Hubble Space Telescope) can see far away distances of the worlds beyond our imagination.

Salute to the Scientists and Astrophysicists who made the Discovery. They must have spent hours validating, analysing their find before making this public.

Lots of click bait articles have popped up trying to twist, turn and cash this piece of news.

[neeraj0272]

Originally Posted by Amrik Singh

A small question : What is the use of this discovery or information ?
Is it not sheer waste of time and resources ?

It is very sad to see this kind of an attitude in the current times. US and other advanced economies and most of the scientists do not do research to discover 'uses' but rather because they are curious to find out how things work in our world. It is this curiosity which is an evidence that humans have a brain which is significantly better than the other species.

Originally Posted by Amrik Singh

We are highlighting this news because the concerned person is of Indian origin. We take pride of Indians who excelled in their fields after leaving India and settled abroad.

As soon as I saw the words 'Indian-Origin' in the title of this thread, my heart sank.
Because some of us Indians have such inferiority complex that they clutch to straws to show the world that Indians are no less than others but in the whole process we make a fool of ourselves. This has been fuelled to such an extent in the last 10 years that even the 'leading media' are cashing in on this sentiment. I would go on to say that many 'Indian-Origin' people deliberately are taking advantage of this.
In this current media story, if one take a cursory look at the articles of different 'leading media', one can easily come to a conclusion that source of all these different media outlets is same. All articles have almost same take on the topic.

[somersault]

Originally Posted by CarNerd

How on earth can one detect a molecule of Dimethyl Sulfide (DMS) located on a planet 120 light-years away? How accurate is the detection? Before that, how does one come up with 120 light-years distance? What's the technique behind it?

Astrophysics is an advanced area which is being researched by scientists over 100+ years. They have created various equations and have proven those. Those scientists have received Nobel Prizes for Physics over years. Today one can accurately predict vast number of attributes like following using those equations.

1. Mass of the star/planet/galaxy (Using Einstein's other equations on space-time curve)
2. Size of the star/planet/galaxy (Using density detection)
3. Maximum theoretical mass of a white dwarf star (Chandrashekhar limit) and its journey from birth to death.
4. Speed at which Universe expands (Doppler Red Shifts)
5. Temperature of the star using the colors in the spectrum analysis of the visible/non visible light.
6. Composition of the star or atmosphere using spectrum wavelength analysis of the visible / non visible light.
7. Distance of the star from earth using Parallax method and using Cepheid Variables stars
8. Pulsars/ Quasars to detect black holes possible locations
9. White Noise in the universe and any deviation from that to detect any abnormal activity.

[Roy.S]

When scientists first started to experiment with the idea of wireless communication I'm sure there were many people who asked why time and money were being wasted mucking around with invisible waves. There was, after all, a perfectly good telegraph network.

[Samarth 619]

Originally Posted by GTX+

I am sorry but what misleading information have I shared?
Trolling you or anyone is never my intent when I post on this forum....

I totally agree with you, and clearly, there was no trolling, your post was just aimed at mods. It's very important to highlight facts (or statements closest to facts) as they are, and yes, media gets clickbaity sometimes.

As of now, right, we can only conclude that these are "hints", not proof.

I strongly believe there could be multiple ways for a chemical substance or compound to be formed, in the universe, even if there's just one known method on Earth.
Thus, a gap exists due to the lack of complete, all encompassing knowledge, and thus, not conclusive proof.

Originally Posted by anujmishra

What the scientist observed is 120 Light years away from earth. Means, he saw the evidence at 120 Light years back from now.
What is the possibility that still life exist in that planet? What we observe in space is past and it is long past.

Indeed, your statement did take a moment to sink in, but it is true.

I think it's even safer to assume that we'll never ever reach this planet or come in contact with any such life, due to the huge distance.

Originally Posted by AltoLXI

What are we going to do if we find that life exists elsewhere in the universe?..... Even if they chose to respond, without putting us on hold, it will still take 120 years to receive the message...

It's just (claimed/ hinting at) algae, so it's not unlikely to lead to us meeting something as interactive as ET or Jadoo or PK or something.
It's just a scientific discovery, but it could lead to a chain of discoveries involving further understanding of mysteries of the universe. Remember, we don't know its end yet?