The strongest evidence yet of life beyond Earth?

Earlier this month, a team of astronomers led by Professor Nikku Madhusudhan at the University of Cambridge published data from the James Webb Space Telescope and claimed, “This is the strongest evidence yet there is possibly life out there.”

On an exoplanet K2-18b, orbiting a star 124 light years away, the observations signalled the presence of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and potentially dimethyl disulfide (DMDS) – molecules that on Earth are only produced by living organisms. K2-18b was first discovered in 2015 and is twice as large as Earth. Its orbit is in the habitable zone of its red dwarf star, which means that its temperature is just right for water to be in liquid form, and we already know it has methane and carbon dioxide in its atmosphere.

More work needs to be done to confirm these observations, but even then it is a long road to confirm if there is life out there. Might these molecules have a geological rather than biological origin? And we should not make the mistake of thinking these new observations mean that there is intelligent life eager to say hello. There may be simple microbial life, but it is a long way from an amoeba to an accountant!

Yet, as new discoveries and observations of exoplanets occur now at a rapid pace, what are the implications for evidence that there is life out there? There is huge public interest in the question across all cultures. I happened to be in Cambridge last week speaking to fellow theologians. I spent a whole lunchtime speaking with a distinguished visiting New Testament scholar from India — not about the Bible, but the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence.

The next day, back at my own University in Durham, I attended an international symposium hosted by a professor of the law school. The event brought together lawyers, astronomers, sociologists, philosophers, and scholars of religion to examine both the current search for extra-terrestrial intelligence and the associated field of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. In the past this would have been considered fringe or pseudo-science, but the meeting explored how to apply scientific rigour to the evidence and then asked what the implications for humanity might be if we did have good evidence for life out there.

As part of the meeting, the results of a pilot survey, “Contact with Extraterrestrial Intelligence – A study of projected perceptions and reactions among the world’s societies” was presented by Andreas Anton, Michael Bohlander and John Elliott. One of the fascinating results was an indication that people who described themselves as religious or spiritual appeared to be more open the existence of alien life and be more relaxed about future contact. This is surprising to many people who assume that religious people would feel more threatened by evidence for alien life. For example, it is often suggested that Christians would feel they are no longer unique or special to God.

Yet in a recent conversation with our former ECLAS colleague, sociologist Dr Lydia Reid, we talked about how religion expands the imaginative space for thinking about things beyond this world and our normal everyday experience of life. Indeed, this has been the case throughout history. Christian theologians from Origen from the second century onwards speculated about the existence of many worlds, motivated by the conviction that the creator God they saw in Jesus was creator of the whole universe and had created it freely with extravagance. Later, this led to Galileo pointing his telescope at the universe to discover what God had created.

If the confirmation of evidence for life and intelligent life beyond Earth does come, perhaps the Christian faith has something to offer to help humanity understand afresh its place in the universe. At the very least, as a Christian I want to be at the forefront of supporting further observations and future funding of this growing important scientific quest.