What'll It Take to Find Life? Searching the Universe for Biosignatures
The supertelescopes are coming, enormous ground and space-based observatories that’ll let us directly observe the atmospheres of distant worlds. We know there’s life on Earth, and our atmosphere tells the tale, so can we do the same thing with extrasolar planets? It turns out, coming up with a single biosignature, a chemical in the atmosphere that tells you that yes, absolutely, there’s life on that world, is really tough.
What'll It Take to Find Life? Searching the Universe for Biosignatures (YouTube)
Comments (11)
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I'm using Mailchimp right now, just hand coding the HTML. Is it working out okay for you?
Frasier, how long does it take the ISS to transit the sun? I found an app that tells when and where it will happen near me. Just wondering about the transit time. Thanks
It takes like a second to actually cross the Moon, so you need to be ready before it happens.
I'd am concerned about what we would do if something goes wrong with the James Webb telescope, like it did with the Hubble, if we have no way of reaching it?
One word sir, one word ... perseverance.
I'm just glad that they're so much easier to fix and upgrade... but JWST is doing to be epic if all does well. Getting up above the atmosphere... there's defo something to be said for it. Essential for x-ray and gamma ray telescopes, but that miserable atmosphere is crap for observing... good at keeping us alive though. And the aurora... looking forward to hopefully seeing some next week!
The best thing about these telescopes is that they can't blow up on the launch pad or fail to deploy at the L2. They're getting quite impressive. We're going to learn loads in the next 2 decades and I cannae wait!
Some will be space telescopes, but I think the next round of ground-based telescopes are going to push the science ahead so much.
The supertelescopes are coming ... I can't even begin to describe how awesome that sentence alone makes me feel.
Yeah, totally. Knowing what this next generation of telescopes will be capable of...