The new James Webb Space Telescope will mark a historic milestone in the field of astronomy. Almost everyone agrees that it will change the way we observe the cosmos. One of the main features that will make scientists gloat the most will be the possibility of studying exoplanets, that is, planets outside our solar system, in much greater detail.
James Webb could detect plant life on an exoplanet
As Universe Today explains, it is hoped that the James Webb could also allow us to detect life on other planets. One of the methods that could allow us to understand if there is life, for example plant, on a distant exoplanet, even tens of light years away, is the analysis of infrared wavelengths. According to the article, plant life is likely to use photosynthesis to get the energy it needs. Chlorophyll, a compound found in plants and essential for photosynthesis on Earth, is highly visible in infrared. A substance that would have a similar function on an extrasolar planet could perhaps be detected by the space telescope.
There is also hope for intelligent life.
And intelligent life? There too, there are good hopes, as highlighted by a new study published in arXiv. An intelligent civilization would most likely set up an extensive industrial system which, in turn, would produce special chemicals that would be placed in the atmosphere. Some of these compounds, produced by industrial processes, cannot be produced by known natural phenomena. They would therefore constitute, once detected in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, a major clue to the presence of intelligent and advanced life, at least at our level.
James Webb could detect chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere
According to the new study, the James Webb Telescope could search for chlorofluorocarbons among various air pollutants of industrial origin. These are compounds that we use here on Earth for various industrial products, including refrigerants and various cleaning products. These are the products that, right here on Earth, caused the hole in the ozone layer that led to the international banning of many of them in the late 1980s.
These are greenhouse gases which, if used by an intelligent civilization, would reside in the atmosphere of the planet concerned for a very long time.
A star that’s too bright would be a problem
There is a problem, however, according to the study: if the star is too bright, searching for such compounds in a planet’s atmosphere becomes more difficult, perhaps even too difficult for the James Webb. This is one of the reasons why a similar space telescope orbiting a planet in the TRAPPIST-1 system some 40 light-years away would not be able to detect Earth, because the Sun would be too brilliant. However, the TRAPPIST-1 system itself has planets orbiting a red dwarf, which is much dimmer than Earth, and so, as far as we are concerned, we could detect such gases, if they were present in good quantity, in the atmosphere of one of the planets of this system.
James Webb: still a very important step forward
What seems certain is that with the James Webb, humanity has taken a very important step forward, not only in astronomical research in general, but also in that, for many perhaps much more interesting, extraterrestrial life, especially intelligent life.