Webb Space Telescope Provides New Tools To Search for the Building Blocks of Life on Distant Planets

This artist’s conception shows the fully unfolded James Webb Space Telescope in space. Credit: Adriana Manrique Gutierrez, NASA Animator

How NASA in Silicon Valley Will Use Webb to Study Distant Worlds

Illustration comparing the sizes of sub-Neptune exoplanets TOI-421 b and GJ 1214 b to Earth and Neptune. Both TOI-421 b and GJ 1214 b are in between Earth and Neptune in terms of radius, mass, and density. The planets are arranged from left to right in order of increasing radius and mass. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and D. Player (STScI)

“The diversity of planets we’ve discovered within the galaxy far exceeds the diversity of planets within our own solar system,” said Natasha Batalha, a research scientist at Ames who is a co-investigator on several Webb programs. “In our solar system, we have the inner rocky worlds and outer gas planets – but the most common exoplanets we see are actually in between.”

Batalha’s team will use Webb to study 11 of those “in between” planets, larger than the Earth but smaller than

This artist’s concept portrays the seven rocky exoplanets within the TRAPPIST-1 system, located 40 light-years from Earth. Astronomers will observe these worlds with Webb in an effort to detect the first atmosphere of an Earth-sized planet beyond our solar system. Credit: NASA and JPL/Caltech

Though most of the worlds in Greene’s study are made of gas, one is rocky – TRAPPIST-1b. It is the innermost planet in the TRAPPIST-1 system, a group of seven rocky, roughly Earth-sized planets that orbit close to a small, cool dwarf star. With so little known about the makeup of the planet, including if it has an atmosphere or not, the data gathered by Webb could reveal it to be a dead and barren world, or even one with the potential for hosting life.

“A planet’s atmosphere is essential for the possibility of life as we know it,” said Greene. “We’ve developed Webb’s instruments to be able to give us the data we need to not only detect atmospheres, but to determine what they are made of.”

Greene’s team will be taking a close look at the spectrum of the planet – to see what kind of light it emits, which gives a view into its chemical composition. The study will focus on the planet’s infrared emissions and search for signs of carbon dioxide. If there are signs an atmosphere is present, and especially carbon dioxide, then TRAPPIST-1b could have formed and evolved like the rocky planets in our own solar system that also have carbon dioxide – Read More