On New Year’s Eve 2023, amid appearances by Joss Stone and Rod Steward on Jools Holland’s holiday ‘Musical Hootenanny’, a major 2024 revelation was alluded to: soon, we might learn that we aren’t alone in the universe.

During a segment on the BBC TV program, British space scientist Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock was asked by Holland what astronomers might expect to learn in 2024, to which the astronomer offered a tantalizing prediction.

“I think we’re going to discover alien life,” Dr. Aderin-Pocock said.

Pocock wasn’t alone in confidently asserting that the answer to one of humankind’s greatest questions might legitimately soon be on the horizon. Similar comments were made around that time by other leading astronomers in the UK, all of which appeared to point to the publication of a scientific paper sometime in 2024 that would present the strongest evidence yet for the existence of alien life on some distant exoplanet far from Earth.

The insinuations that the discovery of alien life could be imminent all followed news from earlier that year, where NASA revealed that the James Webb Space Telescope had detected carbon-bearing molecules, including methane and carbon dioxide, on the exoplanet K2-18 b.

“Webb’s discovery adds to recent studies suggesting that K2-18 b could be a Hycean exoplanet,” NASA reported at the time, “one which has the potential to possess a hydrogen-rich atmosphere and a water ocean-covered surface.” Of particular significance was the apparent detection of dimethyl sulfide on the exoplanet, which astronomers recognize as a potential indicator of life.

“On Earth, this is only produced by life,” NASA reported of the discovery.