The James Webb Space Telescope is the most powerful space-based observatory that has ever been built and it shows a tiny portion of the vast universe. Astronomers around the world have been shown cheering and crying. Astrobiologists, who study the origins, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe, are excited too. One of the oldest questions of mankind is whether or not we are alone in the universe.
One of the first images to be released was of the First Deep Field. There is a patch of sky that is roughly the size of a grain of sand held at arm's length by a person. Each of the 100 billion stars could have their own family of planets and moons.
The chance of finding other planets or moons with the potential to host life has increased due to the fact that we have multiple worlds in our solar system. It is likely that the universe has many of them.
It is possible to see more about the character of the stars and galaxies using a different instrument. Some appear blue because they don't have a lot of dust, while other objects are red because they are shrouded in dust. The galaxies are now green. The green indicates that the dust in the stars contains a mix of chemicals.
The team was able to analyse the starlight as it passed through the atmosphere of a hot Jupiter-like planet. The planet is too hot for liquid water and there is a bunch of wavy lines that show it. The detective work begins as we search the smaller, rocky planets in the hopes of finding worlds where conditions are suitable for life.
We don't know how to do this. The gold standard of habitability is an Earth-like atmosphere dominated by nitrogen, carbon dioxide and water. The atmosphere over the history of life hasn't always been composed this way. The glint of light reflecting off of oceans and the effects of vegetation are included inhabitability markers.
Astrobiologists are looking for gases indicative of biological activity in the distant exoplanetary atmosphere. Oxygen is the main gas in the modern atmosphere, and most of it is produced from photosynthesis. Methanogenesis, an ancient form of metabolism for some micro-bacteria, is the main source of methane in our atmosphere. It is going to be difficult to identify unambiguous signatures of life. Abiotic and biological sources can be produced by volcanoes, water-rock interactions or even humans.
Only those biosignatures with a planetary impact will likely be visible. The detection of habitability markers or biosignature gases using the JWST will be enough of an incentive to make us pause and explore the worlds in question. It's more exciting than that right now.
The way we look at the universe has been changed by the JWST, and in the future we will be able to see the chemical makeup of other worlds. We may finally get the proof that life in one form or another is universal and that we have never been alone.
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