This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flito. Later in the hour, what we can learn from radioactive

wildlife and the struggle of keeping cool while waiting for public transit. But first,

scientists using the James Webb Space Telescope have made an exciting discovery. Exoplanet K-218B,

120 light years away from our solar system could be covered by a water ocean, and it shows

evidence of possible life.

Scientists say this could be a big leap in our exploration of life outside of our planet.

And joining me to talk about this story and other science news of the week is my guest, Tim Revel,

Deputy U.S. editor for a new other science news of the week is my guest, Tim Revell,

deputy U.S. editor for a new scientist and host of the New Scientist Weekly Podcast.

He's based in New York.

Welcome back, Tim.

Hello, thanks for having me.

You're welcome.

This sounds pretty exciting.

What makes it so special?

Yeah, there's been a lot of excitement about this one this week, And a lot of that has come from a tentative sign of this molecule called dimethyl sulfide or DMS that's been spotted in the planet's atmosphere.

And the thing about DMS is that it's only produced by life on Earth anyway.

And that's mostly by phytoplankton. So that could mean that it's a sign of life on K218B2, but it's worth saying that it's still just a tentative sign. So we need to do a

bit more analysis to really confirm that it is actually present there. And then, of course,

it's also possible that though we currently only know a way for life to

produce this molecule, it's possible that there's a chemical process that we don't know of

that could also produce it. What else would they look for to see if there are signs of life?

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