2024-01-23 03:30:00
Although there are still several years left until the launch of the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), a NASA space telescope concept that will search for habitable planets in other stars, some researchers are already dedicated to advancing this search.
In this sense, a study led by UC Berkeley doctoral student Caleb Harade and titled Setting the stage for the search for life with the Habitable Worlds Observatory: Properties of 164 promising targets For the study of planets, it has identified 164 planets with “promising” signs of the presence of organic life.
The 32-page research is available in the arXiv repository and has been submitted for publication to the American Astronomical Society. These planets, they explain, are interesting first of all because they have optimal conditions for observation due to their luminosity.
The team’s methodology included more than 1,700 individual measurements on the abundance of 14 chemical elements, more than 900 photometry measurements, calculations on the rate of solar flares for 44 stars, light variability metrics for 78 stars, and X-ray detections for 41 stars.
Although the overall analysis count is limited by the lack of complete data for some stars, the authors point out that aspects such as excessive plasma flare or X-ray activity from the star would complicate the possibility of life.
The team, which emphasizes the essentiality of carrying out this type of measurements, advances that “this work is the first in a series of precursory scientific articles that will come out of NASA’s Decadal Astrophysics Survey program.”
It is planned that the HWO will be able to observe planets directly at optical, infrared and ultraviolet wavelengths and perform spectrographic analysis of the light to detect possible signs of organic life in the atmospheres of the worlds it studies.
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