Looking for life beyond our solar system? Laughing gas could be a sign, new study suggests - USA TODAY

In a study published Tuesday in The Astrophysical Journal, researchers from the University of California, Riverside, Purdue University, American University, the Georgia Institute of Technology and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center outline how N2O is a "compelling exoplanet biosignature gas.".

Fewer researchers have seriously considered nitrous oxide, but we think that may be a mistake,” Eddie Schwieterman, one of the study's authors and an astrobiologist at UC Riverside, said in a university news release.

The researchers also calculated the amounts of N2O that could be detected by observatories like NASA's James Webb Space Telescope

The Webb telescope "will allow us to probe the atmospheres of a small number of these temperate terrestrial exoplanets," the researchers wrote, notably within TRAPPIST-1,  a red dwarf star in the constellation Aquarius with a system of seven known planets