Has humanity’s greatest question finally been answered in the atmosphere of a distant world? For decades, we’ve wondered if we’re alone in the universe, and now the James Webb Space Telescope might have just delivered the answer we’ve been waiting for.

In a discovery that has the scientific community buzzing, JWST has detected chemical signatures in the atmosphere of exoplanet K2-18b that are strikingly similar to those produced by living organisms here on Earth. The star of this cosmic show is a molecule called dimethyl sulfide, or DMS. On our home planet, this compound is almost exclusively produced by living organisms—specifically, microscopic marine life like phytoplankton that float near the ocean’s surface.

When JWST’s sensitive instruments picked up spectral signatures consistent with DMS in K2-18b’s atmosphere, scientists nearly fell out of their chairs. This wasn’t just any chemical detection; this was potentially the fingerprint of alien life. But that’s not all. The telescope also identified dimethyl disulfide (DMDS) and a suite of carbon-containing molecules, including methane and carbon dioxide.