Definitions range from “chemicals with carbon-carbon and/or carbon-hydrogen bonds” to “any chemical with carbon in it.” It’s important to note that, while living things are largely made up of organic compounds, organic compounds don’t necessarily mean living things.
Also since carbon-based life is all we are currently aware of, but we only have one example to go from, living things does not necessarily mean carbon.
…scientists were able to directly detect and analyze spectral features of non-water-ice materials on Ganymede’s surface. Some of these non-water-ice materials include hydrated sodium chloride, ammonium chloride, sodium bicarbonate, and possibly even aliphatic aldehyde.
It’s less that they don’t want to say, and more that this is more or less meaningless to anyone who isn’t a chemist
Definitions range from “chemicals with carbon-carbon and/or carbon-hydrogen bonds” to “any chemical with carbon in it.” It’s important to note that, while living things are largely made up of organic compounds, organic compounds don’t necessarily mean living things.
Also since carbon-based life is all we are currently aware of, but we only have one example to go from, living things does not necessarily mean carbon.
That makes a lot of sense. So most likely they found something with Carbon and dont want to specify in public
Pretty deep in the article, I found the passage
It’s less that they don’t want to say, and more that this is more or less meaningless to anyone who isn’t a chemist