It’s cruel that way.

when we find an oxygen atmosphere around a rocky near-Earth-mass world of a G-class star, then we’ll be on to something

more likely though, Earth is a one-in-a-trillion fluke and all other rocky exoplanets are either like Mars or Venus: too much atmosphere for life or not enough

John Carter: I think my post is not as clear as it should be. It isn’t the discovery of carbon or methane in this exoplanet’s atmosphere that has gotten these scientists excited. It is the discovery of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and/or dimethyl disulfide (DMDS]. It is those molecules that on Earth are associated solely with life processes.

However, we are really in agreement. This result is intriguing for sure, but it proves nothing at all at this point.

The Venusian and Martian atmospheres are 95+% CO2, Titan has 5% Methane… last I checked none had any links to biology. And while they may be *linked* to biology here on Earth, they are not *only* linked with biology.

(grok) Volcanoes emit CO₂ during eruptions and through diffuse outgassing from magma, contributing to the atmosphere over geological timescales.

Wikipedia (I know, shoot me): Methane can be generated through geological, biological or industrial routes.

This really proves nothing in terms of a link to biology.

The quoted study only says that, “This was the first time that carbon-based molecules were discovered in the atmosphere of an *exoplanet in the habitable zone*.” Give that such molecules have been widely found on planets and moons in our own solar system, finding an exoplanet with the same is really not very surprising.