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  <front>
    <journal-meta>
      <journal-title-group>
        <journal-title>Cosmological and Astrobiological Review: Journal for the Study of the Universe, Life and the Natural Sciences</journal-title>
      </journal-title-group>
      <issn pub-type="ppub">3126-3836</issn>
      <issn pub-type="epub">3126-3844</issn>
      <publisher>
        <publisher-name>SAPCRAA</publisher-name>
        <publisher-loc>Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina</publisher-loc>
      </publisher>
    </journal-meta>
    <article-meta>
      <article-id pub-id-type="publisher-id">1595</article-id>
      <article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.65932/CAR-2025-2-4</article-id>
      <title-group>
        <article-title>Spectroscopic detection of phosphine and dimethyl sulfide as potential biosignatures in the atmosphere of the sub-nep- tune k2-18b with the jwst/nirspec instrument</article-title>
      </title-group>
      <contrib-group>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <name>
            <surname>Petrosyan</surname>
            <given-names>Gor</given-names>
          </name>
          <contrib-id contrib-id-type="orcid">https://orcid.org/0009-0003-2864-2187</contrib-id>
        </contrib>
      </contrib-group>
      <pub-date pub-type="epub">
        <day>29</day>
        <month>12</month>
        <year>2025</year>
      </pub-date>
      <volume>3</volume>
      <issue>1</issue>
      <fpage>57</fpage>
      <lpage>72</lpage>
      <self-uri xlink:href="https://sapcraa.com/article-preview/1595"/>
      <abstract>
        <p>The sub-Neptune K2-18b has become the most discussed object in the search for life beyond the Solar System. JWST transmission spectroscopy of its hydrogen-rich atmosphere has yielded firm detections of methane and carbon dioxide and a contested, repeatedly re-examined signal attributed to dimethyl sulfide — a molecule that on Earth is produced almost exclusively by marine life. Phosphine, a second gas long proposed as a biosignature, belongs to the same assessment problem. This article does not attempt to adjudicate whether the dimethyl sulfide signal is statistically real; independent reanalyses disagree, and that disagreement is treated here as data rather than as a question to be settled. Instead, the article advances a conceptual argument that holds whichever way the statistics fall. Drawing on fifteen Scopus-indexed studies and seven institutional sources, I introduce and develop the principle of detection–biogenicity decoupling: on a hydrogen-rich sub-Neptune, the atmospheric properties that maximize the spectroscopic detectability of a candidate biosignature molecule — low mean molecular weight, an extended scale height, a large transit signal, and a reducing photochemistry — are the same properties that maximize its abiotic production and accumulation. Detectability and biogenic diagnosticity are therefore not independent; they are structurally anti-correlated. The very features that make K2- 18b an efficient JWST/NIRSpec target make it an inefficient biosignature target. The principle is supported by three lines of evidence: the spectral degeneracy of the candidate molecules with abiotically plausible species such as ethane in the NIRSpec range; the demonstrated abiotic syn- thesis of dimethyl sulfide in cometary and interstellar environments entirely devoid of life; and the photochemical plausibility of organosulfur and phosphorus chemistry in a hydrogen-domi- nated envelope. The implication is that a NIRSpec detection, however statistically robust, cannot by itself constitute a biosignature on a hydrogen-rich world, and that biosignature assessment must shift from the detection of a molecule to the demonstration that its abundance exceeds the abiotic ceiling for its specific planetary context.</p>
      </abstract>
      <kwd-group kwd-group-type="author">
        <kwd>K2-18b</kwd>
        <kwd>biosignatures</kwd>
        <kwd>dimethyl sulfide</kwd>
        <kwd>phosphine</kwd>
        <kwd>JWST NIRSpec</kwd>
        <kwd>sub-Neptune atmospheres</kwd>
        <kwd>detection–biogenicity decoupling</kwd>
      </kwd-group>
    </article-meta>
  </front>
</article>
