Who is Nikku Madhusudhan, the Indian-origin scientist behind breakthrough in search for life outside the Earth

The name of Dr Nikku Madhusudhan exploded in the public domain with his breakthrough research on a planet named K2-18b. What made the announcement significant was his assertion that his team has found the most promising sign yet of a possible biosignature outside the solar system.

“This is the strongest evidence yet there is possibly life out there. I can realistically say that we can confirm this signal within one to two years,” said Dr Madhusudhan.

This could be one of the most significant discoveries in the history of science and humankind – if proved true. And he is positive about it.

What did his team find?
Dr Madhusudhan and his team found chemical fingerprints of dimethyl sulfide (DMS), in the atmosphere of the exoplanet K2-18b. It is a molecule linked to life on Earth. They have used data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to arrive at this conclusion.
K2-18b is an exoplanet 124 light years away from Earth. Exoplanet simply means it is a planet outside of our Solar System. It orbits the red dwarf star K2-18 and is located in the Leo constellation.
Who is Nikku Madhusudhan?
Dr Nikku Madhusudhan is an Associate Professor in Astrophysics, at the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge.

Born in India, Dr Madhusudhan is educated in India and abroad. He obtained a B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi and later earned an M.S. and Ph.D. in planetary science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
According to his Cambridge University profile, he is widely known for pioneering the inverse techniques to measure atmospheric properties of exoplanets based on their atmospheric spectra observed using a wide array of observational facilities in space and from the ground.
His other notable studies include estimations of chemical compositions of exoplanetary atmospheres and interiors, and using them to investigate the formation mechanisms of exoplanets.
Before joining Cambridge, Dr Madhusudhan held postdoctoral positions at MIT, Princeton, and Yale (where he was the YCAA Prize Postdoctoral Fellow).

Dr Madhusudhan has received several awards, including the EAS MERAC Prize in Theoretical Astrophysics (2019), the IUPAP Young Scientist Medal in Astrophysics (2016), and the ASI Vainu Bappu Gold Medal (2014)How far is 124 light years?

How far away is this exoplanet? A light-year is the distance that light travels in one Earth year. In one second, light travels 299,792,458 meters. So one light year would be approximately 9.461x 10 ¹² kilometres. Most of us would have already lost the sense of distance with this number. And 124 light-years would be 124 times this figure, which turns out to be 1.17×10 ¹⁵ km.