Belmont Club: Where Are They?

<![CDATA[News from Cambridge that they may have detected biochemical signatures on a relatively nearby exoplanet has altered the solution probabilities to the Fermi paradox. The New York Times writes that “a team of researchers is offering what it contends is the strongest indication yet of extraterrestrial life, not in our solar system but on a massive planet, known as K2-18b, that orbits a star 120 light-years from Earth. A repeated analysis of the exoplanet’s atmosphere suggests an abundance of a molecule that on Earth has only one known source: living organisms such as marine algae.”]]>