I'm John Batchel with Bob Zimmerman.

We've got a problem.

The problem is a biosignature.

Bob, what is a biosignature?

I don't know if this is a problem.

This could be very exciting.

It could be absolutely nothing.

It's very important to point out this is a problem.

Yeah, right. Okay.

So anyway, astronomers using the web telescope looking at a exoplanet that's a super

Earth, it's eight times as massive as the Earth and two and a half times larger.

It orbits a red dwarf star, 124 light years away, but it also orbits it in the habitable zone.

And previously, they detected methane and carbon dioxide in its atmosphere.

And so there's theories that it might be a planet that's ocean covered with a hydrogen-rich

atmosphere.

That's the theory.

It's not proven.

But these guys had detections that suggested there were some molecules in the atmosphere

that were of significance.

So they used Webb to do further observations, and they think they've gotten a detection of two

different molecules that are found on Earth only associated with life. You don't find these molecules

except in the connection with produced from life. So is that a biosignature on an exoplanet?

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