Webb Telescope Is Powerful Enough To See a Variety of Biosignatures In Exoplanets, Argues New Paper (phys.org) 39
A new study argues that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is capable of detecting the chemical signs of life in exoplanet atmospheres -- the best hope for finding life on another world. Phys.Org reports: The team simulated atmospheric conditions for five broad types of Earth-like worlds: an ocean world, a volcanically active world, a rocky world during the high bombardment period, a super-Earth, and a world like Earth when life arose. They assumed all these worlds had a surface pressure of less than five Earth atmospheres, and calculated the absorption spectra for several organically produced molecules such as methane, ammonia, and carbon monoxide. These molecules can also be formed by non-biological methods, but they form a good baseline as a proof of concept.
They found that with a reasonably thick atmosphere, the JWST, specifically its NIRSpec G395M/H instrument, could confirm the presence of these molecules within 10 transits of the planet. It would be easiest to do with super-Earths and other worlds with a thick atmosphere, but it is still possible for potentially habitable worlds. Given the number of transits needed, our best shot at detecting biosignatures with JWST would be the close-orbiting worlds of red dwarf stars, such as the Trappist-1 system, which has several potentially habitable Earth-sized planets. Given the overlap between biological and non-biological origins, JWST observations might not be enough to confirm the existence of life, but this study shows that we are very close to that ability.
They found that with a reasonably thick atmosphere, the JWST, specifically its NIRSpec G395M/H instrument, could confirm the presence of these molecules within 10 transits of the planet. It would be easiest to do with super-Earths and other worlds with a thick atmosphere, but it is still possible for potentially habitable worlds. Given the number of transits needed, our best shot at detecting biosignatures with JWST would be the close-orbiting worlds of red dwarf stars, such as the Trappist-1 system, which has several potentially habitable Earth-sized planets. Given the overlap between biological and non-biological origins, JWST observations might not be enough to confirm the existence of life, but this study shows that we are very close to that ability.
Re:Welcome to the Surveillance Universe (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, the mythical "they", the most powerful organization ever. There's nothing, NOTHING, "they" cannot do.
Re:Welcome to the Surveillance Universe (Score:5, Funny)
What exact time do you think is "day" for a telescope parked in the L2 lagrange point?!
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Even Hubble, which orbits Earth, does astronomy when on the lit side of Earth IINM. It's just limited in what targets it can watch in order to avoid glare.
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using a telescope that could count the hairs on your head from orbit to peek into people's bedrooms and watch them fucking...
That's why I fuck in the kitchen, no skylight in that room.
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On a side note: Astronomical telescopes do not magnify. Astronomical instruments amplify.
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All kidding aside, who is this telescope looking at during the day instead of distant stars and their planets, I wonder. Because you just know they wouldn't be able to resist using a telescope that could count the hairs on your head from orbit to peek into people's bedrooms and watch them fucking...
1) There is no night or day for JWST as it is at Lagrange 2 orbit (1.5 million km) and pointed away from the Earth. Pointing JWST towards Earth would be pointing at the night side. 2) While it could be pointed at Earth, the instruments are too sensitive to detect anything on Earth as the detectors would be over saturated (think over-exposure in film). Dr Becky explains that JWST cannot observe Betelgeuse (500-600 light years) directly as it is too sensitive [youtu.be]. 3) JWST specializes in infrared. It is not likely
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I interpreted it as a general complaint about potential misuse of ANY space-based telescope, being it wouldn't make sense to only be concerned about JWST.
Do note that Hubble was built using existing spy-scope technology, meaning there are already active Earth-spy-scopes buzzing about Earth*. I see very little reason to limit the snoop worry to just astronomy-designated scopes also. There's plenty of sky-eyes already that have nothing to do with NASA or astronomy.
* One of the reasons for the Hubble "blur" mi
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And my point is that JWST as well as many space telescopes are poorly designed to spy on the Earth. Even in your example of Hubble, it would be a bad spy satellite as it was designed to see very far from the Earth.
One of the reasons for the Hubble "blur" mishap was that protecting the technology knowhow made pre-launch testing difficult.
Er what? The mirror was ground to the wrong shape due to a calibration error. I am not sure what technology was being protected as mirrors are not new to science. The main reason it was not detected earlier was that the mirror was only made for Hubble so there was not robust procedures in place to
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As for galaxies withoud dark matter, life hasn't risen in them, or else their life is immortal, and thus hasn't been shedding souls all around.
God puts a little soul in you when you are conceived. So the weight is always there whether you die or not.
What actually happens is that the soul gets heaver for all the evil that you do. (weighs heavy on the soul)
Galaxies with more dark matter are just the more evil ones./s
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>God puts a little soul in you when you are conceived
Where did he put it?
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>God puts a little soul in you when you are conceived Where did he put it?
(he doesn't really)
There are no such things as souls. Or gods.
Now you know.
You're welcome.
Re: Dark matter is the biosignature (Score:2)
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Ahh, I wondered how far I'd have to scroll to find the smug atheist!
You could have found him at the /s in the original comment.
Kind of makes you wonder about all this "finding god" when you can't find a clue in two bytes of ASCII
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>God puts a little soul in you when you are conceived
Where did he put it?
Well, you've heard of the ass-soul?
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As I recall that was disproved not long after when someone performed a more rigorous experiment.
And even in his experiment the mass was tiny - not enough to add up to 5x the mass of all the stars in the galaxy even with 8 billion years of living and dying (the oldest 3rd-gen stars like ours, are twice as old as ours)
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> As I recall that was disproved not long after when someone performed a more rigorous experiment.
But those were the rigged and bribed folks. Those who got results were the righteous people. Science works better under the influence of righteousness waves, which were proved to exist by the righteous people.
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The Star Trek Prime Directive exists to add dramatic tension when the characters are tempted to violate it.
Here in the real world we have a much more practical version that guides our actions: How does that profit the wealthy?
If our reaction to climate change is any indication, the only way to get humanity to (not) do something is to figure out how to make changing more profitable than business as usual.
Fortunately(?) there's not much profit to be made from even a nearby star, making it unlikely we'll attem
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So far, we have mainly discovered ways other celestial bodies can differ from Earth so much, that any life comparable to Earth cannot exist there. I am quite pessimistic when it comes to extraterrestical life.
On the other hand, "able to discover biosignatures on other planets" is just another way to say how fricking awesome and versatile the JWST act
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The "Prime Directive is nothing more than a plot device used to spice up stories in the Star Trek series. Nowhere on earth is such a philosophy practiced. We routinely "interfere" with other cultures with few inhibitions. Even in Star Trek itself, most of the stories dealing with the Prime Directive, involve violations of it.
In real life, such a directive has little value or purpose. People who live in "backwards" societies want desperately to take advantage of more advanced technology, and do so as soon as
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Nowhere on earth is such a philosophy practiced. We routinely "interfere" with other cultures with few inhibitions
Actually, there is a place on earth where a policy like the Prime Directive applies. The North Sentinel Island in the Indian Ocean. The Sentinelese people have made it well known they want nothing to do with the outside world, killing anyone that washes up on the beach. India banned any visits to the island by anyone.
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Great, you found an exception!
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That isn't the only one. Just the one that I remembered. A little research indicates there are some tribes in the Amazon that are no contact. I think there are some island tribes in southern pacific that are also off limits. Don't quote me on that last one though.
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Usually specialty tools end up creating new mysteries even if they solve an existing one. General-purpose tools and specialized tools are roughly equally likely to generate mysteries. Almost anything that sees more, sees further, or sees deeper will likely generate new puzzles; we don't seem to be running out yet. Thus, I don't think they are intentionally building a job-security-scope or study because science has proven too unpredictable. You can only game the system if you can predict it.
By the way, softw
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Yes, and JWST was built and launched instead of something aimed at answering questions that had already been articulated.
What are you talking about? What is chemical makeup of a distant object like a star is a question that has been articulated many, many decades ago. The makeup of a star's elements would show the stage of a star's lifecycle. As for JWST in general it is an infrared telescope because decades ago, scientists have known that Hubble cannot observe the most distant objects in detail. This is because of Doppler shift causes light for those objects to be infrared. Also known decades ago, dust and gas obscure visibl
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That's what I said. JWST is not designed to answer that question, it's designed to marginally expand on it in a way that multiplies unknowns.
I said literally the opposite.
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That's what I said. JWST is not designed to answer that question, it's designed to marginally expand on it in a way that multiplies unknowns.,
JWST has an infrared spectrograph [nasa.gov] to detect molecules from distant objects. Yet you say it was not designed to do the EXACT job to which it was designed to do. "Analyzing the spectrum of an object can tell us about its physical properties, including temperature, mass, and chemical composition."
I said literally the opposite.
What are you saying as you make no sense as you state things which are factually not true.