Off The Record
Scientists Detect Possible Alien Life On Distant Planet — Here’s What It Might Look Like
Scientists have discovered a nearby planet, seemingly teeming with life, with the aid of Earth’s most sophisticated computer systems.
Astronomers refer to the planet as K2-18b. It is situated in the constellation of Leo, around 124 light-years away from Earth. There are 5.88 trillion miles in a light year.
According to researchers, K2-18b is a “hycean” world, which might have an ocean the size of a planet beneath an atmosphere that is rich in hydrogen.
Strong evidence of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and dimethyl disulfide (DMDS), two compounds produced by microscopic marine algae known as phytoplankton here on Earth, was discovered by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) during its investigation of the planet.
In the hopes that the enormous amount of human information stored in these computers will produce a picture of what these animals may look like, DailyMail.com applied these findings to a number of the most well-known artificial intelligence (AI) chat applications.
The ChatGPT, Grok, and DALL-E 3 picture generators performed admirably, using the exoplanet’s atmospheric parameters to provide their best estimates of how life would develop on K2-18b.
AI-predicted visuals included frog-like animals with eyes and walking limbs, as well as tiny swarms of jellyfish.
Furthermore, after a few billion years of evolution, the image generators even forecasted what these species may develop into.
ChatGPT’s image-generating program created an incredibly complicated lifeform that resembled a frog but could stand up on its hind legs.
Posing on a tiny patch of land on this enormous ocean world, the creature also possessed several pairs of eyes and nostrils that resembled those of Earthly frogs.
AI added that any animals in the waters of K2-18b would have developed enormous eyes because the red dwarf star’s light is so faint.
A red dwarf star is a long-lived, cold, tiny star with a slow rate of combustion.
A University of Cambridge study discovered astronomical levels of DMS and DMDS on K2-18b that are thousands of times higher than those found on Earth.
This implies that there may be a lot more life actively growing in this far-off planet’s oceans than there is on Earth.
Dr Arik Kershenbaum, a Cambridge zoologist, said, “It’s a complex chemical that decays really quickly. So, if you see it there, then something must be making it.”
The scientists estimate that it might take 1.5 to 2 billion years for something as complex as the species ChatGPT hypothesized to exist on K2-18b to evolve.
Given that K2-18b is 2.6 times bigger and 8.6 times more massive than Earth, the ocean that would cover this planet would be huge and perhaps teeming with marine life.
The hycean world most likely developed at least 1.5 billion years ago, based on the planet’s estimated age of 2.4 to 3 billion years.
However, Grok explored the planet’s whole evolutionary history, thus those aren’t the only lifeforms AI speculated might exist on K2-18b.
“Based on the data, I propose an image depicting a bioluminescent, plankton-like alien organism thriving in the upper layers of K2-18b’s global ocean, just beneath the hydrogen-rich atmosphere,” Grok said after receiving the prompt.
“The scene would be set in a dimly lit, deep-blue aquatic environment, with a hazy, greenish-yellow sky visible through the water’s surface, reflecting the hydrogen-rich atmosphere and possible cloud layers,” the chatbot added.
Grok’s investigation led the AI software to the conclusion that early sophisticated lifeforms on this planet would probably look like semi-transparent, glowing jellyfish swarms.
“The ocean is rich with particulate matter and faint currents, indicating a dynamic, nutrient-rich ecosystem,” Grok explained.
“Bubbles of hydrogen gas rise from below, and the water has a slight yellowish tint due to dissolved sulfur compounds. In the background, faint silhouettes of larger, shadowy aquatic creatures hint at a diverse ecosystem”
Grok generated more than just alien jellyfish; the chatbot also disclosed what these organisms would probably become billions of years later.
Drawing inspiration from the fish and octopuses seen on Earth, Grok hypothesized that a marine species that has undergone several adaptations in the ocean environment of K2-18b would most likely be the result of a billion years of evolution.
According to the AI software, the evolved creature would have characteristics in common with both octopuses and dolphins and would be between 10 and 13 feet long.
The AI continued to predict that the creature will show “hints of bipedal intelligence” but would still have bioluminescent skin after billions of years.
Life in K2-18b would be very different from life on Earth today, according to Dr. Kershenbaum, author of The Zoologists Guide to the Galaxy.
“Even if there is an ocean on this planet it’s going to look more like what Earth looked like three or four billion years ago when life first evolved,” he said.
“So, one thing we can say pretty confidently is that the vast majority of planets that have any sort of life on them are going to have simple life on them.”
Experts hailed the Webb Telescope’s discovery as a “huge, transformational moment,” calling it the “strongest hint yet” of biological life outside our solar system.
The ‘habitable zone’—the area around a red dwarf star where liquid water can exist—is thought to be the most promising for finding planets that can support life.
OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 text-to-image model, which focused on an environment that might harbor an extraterrestrial jellyfish species, concurred with xAI’s Grok.
Even when asked to speculate about the appearance of these animals after billions of years of evolution on K2-18b, the AI program’s best guess was a more complicated jellyfish with shorter tendrils and a more evolved body.
Astronomer Michael Garrett, a professor at Manchester University, previously told DailyMail.com, “I think the way complex life might appear will depend a lot on the environment within which it evolves.”
“If your star is a red giant, you might find life with eyes that are much more sensitive and larger than ours,” he added.
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