Episode 17: Smells Like Alien Spirit

What connects garlic, truffles, and the smell of the sea? Believe it or not, but the compounds that unify all three – known as dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and dimethyl disulfide (DMDS) – are signatures not just of familiar earthly experiences, but potentially of otherworldly bioactivity! In this episode of The Open Universe, we dive into a claimed discovery of DMS and DMDS in the atmosphere of the exoplanet K2-18b – a discovery which, if true, could point to the existence of an alien world teeming with vast oceans of biological activity, and perhaps the most incredible hint of life outside our Solar System yet!