Exploring Alien Worlds With NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope [Video]

The James Webb Space TelescopeThe James Webb Space Telescope (JWST or Webb) is an orbiting infrared observatory that will complement and extend the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope. It covers longer wavelengths of light, with greatly improved sensitivity, allowing it to see inside dust clouds where stars and planetary systems are forming today as well as looking further back in time to observe the first galaxies that formed in the early universe.” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{“attribute”:”data-cmtooltip”, “format”:”html”}]”>James Webb Space Telescope is taking exoplanetAn exoplanet (or extrasolar planet) is a planet that is outside the Solar System, orbiting around a star other than the Sun. The first suspected scientific detection of an exoplanet occurred in 1988, with the first confirmation of detection coming in 1992.” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{“attribute”:”data-cmtooltip”, “format”:”html”}]”>exoplanet studies to the next level, helping us characterize the atmospheres of Earth-sized alien worlds for the first time. By utilizing transit techniques and spectroscopy, Webb will study planetary atmospheres to search for the building blocks of life elsewhere in the universe.

In the “Exploring Alien Worlds with NASAEstablished in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent agency of the United States Federal Government that succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). It is responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. It's vision is "To discover and expand knowledge for the benefit of humanity."” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{“attribute”:”data-cmtooltip”, “format”:”html”}]”>NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope” series, Research Space Scientist Dr. Giada Arney from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center introduces Webb’s scientific capabilities as they relate to the field of astrobiology and our search for life in the universe.

In this series, we’ll touch on Webb’s exploration of the TRAPPIST-1 system (a planetary system of seven rocky exoplanets), its search for atmospheric biosignatures (scientific evidence of past or present life), and the techniques Webb will use in its quest to #UnfoldTheUniverse.

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Video Transcript:

Dr. Giada Arney: NASA missions like Kepler, and also Tess, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite have really revolutionized our understanding of exoplanet demographics.

They’ve told us some basic, but also really important planetary properties like: planets sizes, how far away these planets are from their stars, how common planets of different types are.

But we want to take the next step now and know more about these planets, just as distant point sources, but as actual places, comparable to the worlds of our Solar System.

So James Webb is going to help us to take that next step by actually characterizing the atmospheres of exoplanets.

It’s going to be able to measure the composition of these atmospheres, and we’ve already been able to do this a little bit for the largest JupiterJupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and the fifth planet from the sun. It is a gas giant with a mass greater then all of the other planets combined. Its name comes from the Roman god Jupiter.” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{“attribute”:”data-cmtooltip”, “format”:”html”}]”>Jupiter-sized, “puffy” exoplanets with large atmospheres.

But we haven’t been able to do this for small planets about the size of Earth and with thin atmospheres.

So we really need a powerful and capable mission like James Webb to be able to make those really sensitive measurements to tell us what Earth-size exoplanets are truly like.