Did a Children’s Sci-Fi Author from Aylesbury Predict a Major Scientific Discovery?
Share this Article
Aylesbury, UK. April 17th 2025 – In an astonishing coincidence, Aylesbury-based author Alan Nettleton may have predicted a real-life scientific breakthrough in his children’s science fiction novel Space Kids – The Journey of Hope, published in 2021.
Written mainly to inspire the author’s own children, the book features a 12-year-old girl named Sophie who leads a daring space mission to the distant exoplanet K2-18b. On this imagined world, Sophie and her child-only team discover intelligent alien life. Fast-forward to 2025, and scientists from the University of Cambridge have now detected potential signs of life on the very same planet.
Could this be what awaits us on K2-18b? Cover art from Nettleton’s second book in the Space Kids series.
“It’s surreal,” says Nettleton. “When I picked K2-18b as the setting for Sophie’s adventure, it was one of many distant planets I could have chosen for the story. I never imagined the real planet would make headlines just a few years later.”
The Cambridge team, using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), recently observed chemical signatures in the planet’s atmosphere that include dimethyl sulphide (DMS), a gas on Earth only produced by living organisms such as marine microbes. If confirmed, this could be the most compelling evidence yet of biological activity beyond our solar system.
“This is the strongest evidence yet there is possibly life out there,” said Professor Nikku Madhusudhan, who led the study. “If this association holds, then this planet could be teeming with life.”
The detection is currently at a confidence level of 99.7%—high, but still below the five-sigma threshold required for a scientific confirmation. Nevertheless, the coincidence between the fictional story and the cutting-edge science unfolding now has captured the imagination of local readers and scientists alike.
Space Kids – The Journey of Hope was the debut novel of Alan Nettleton, who penned his first children’s sci-fi novel during lockdown. His work encourages curiosity about science and space exploration in children aged 8–12 and has been praised for its blend of adventure, optimism, and scientific accuracy.
“It just goes to show the power of storytelling,” Nettleton said. “I hope this inspires young people in Aylesbury and beyond to look up at the stars and wonder, ‘What if?’”
The scientific findings have been published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, with more data expected in the coming years.
