‘Failed Star’ Mimics a Key Sign of Life—and That’s Bad News for Alien Hunters

For scientists, the urgent problem with phosphine—a molecule famously touted as a potential sign of life—isn’t so much about where it came from, but why it’s not where we think it should be. After a decade of searching, a long-awaited result has confirmed that our astronomical models aren’t a total bust. At least, for now.

In a Science paper published today, astronomers report the first-ever detection of strong phosphine signatures on a brown dwarf—a type of planet-star hybrid more…