Dimethyl sulfide signature may not indicate extraterrestrial life

Belief in alien life, having been forever devoid of any empirical basis pro or con, has been free to enjoy cycles of fashion. When both traditional astronomy and Christian theology placed the Earth at the centre of the cosmos, few imagined the stars and planets as anything other than the unchanging celestial backdrop to life in this vale of tears. But ‘A Man that is of Copernicus’s Opinion’, in the evaluation of Christiaan Huygens in the late 17th century, ‘cannot but sometimes have a fancy that it’s not improbable that the rest of the Planets have… their Inhabitants too.’