Nikku Madhusudhan: The Indian-Origin Researcher Who Discovered Potential Alien Life

Indian-British astrophysicist Dr Nikku Madhusudhan and his research team at Cambridge University have discovered possible evidence of alien life on a planet far away from Earth known as K2-18b. Using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the research team found evidence of the presence of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and dimethyl disulfide (DMDS) gases, which are especially significant because these are created by the marine algae found in the ocean.

Who is Dr Nikku Madhusudhan?

Dr Madhusudhan was born in 1980 in India. He took his B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology, BHU, Varanasi. Subsequently, he pursued his master’s and a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His PhD thesis in 2009 was on exploring the atmospheres of planets outside our solar system, referred to as extrasolar planets.

He worked as a postdoctoral researcher in several positions at MIT, Princeton University, and Yale University, where he worked as a YCAA Prize Postdoctoral Fellow. He moved to the University of Cambridge in 2013 and worked as a university lecturer in astrophysics for four years. He was appointed Reader in Astrophysics and Exoplanetary Science in 2017. He is now a professor of astrophysics and exoplanetary science.

He invented the concept of hycean planets, which are considered to be the most suitable type of planet where life is likely to be found. The hycean planets have a hydrogen-rich atmosphere, and beneath this are oceans. His research involves studying their atmospheres, interiors, and their formation. His work involves investigating Hycean worlds, Sub-Neptunes, and biosignatures. He also researches radiative transfer, planetary chemistry, and atmospheric retrieval techniques for exoplanets using HST, JWST, and large ground-based telescopes.

In 2012, he investigated a planet named 55 Cancri e, which is larger than Earth, and proposed that it could have a carbon-rich interior. In 2014, he was part of a team that measured the water content in three hot Jupiters and observed less water than predicted. He was a member of the team who discovered titanium oxide in the planetary atmosphere of WASP-19b in 2017. In 2020, he researched K2-18b and discovered water could be on its surface.

Dr Madhusudhan has received a number of awards, including the EAS MERAC Prize in Theoretical Astrophysics (2019), the Pilkington Prize for Excellence in Teaching (2019), the IUPAP Young Scientist Medal in Astrophysics (2016), and the ASI Vainu Bappu Gold Medal (2014).