It's easy to get lost in the first image of the space telescope. Billions of unknown worlds are represented by twinkling stars and tiny red dots.
Kaltenegger told Insider that the deep field image fills her with wonder and hope.
If you hold a grain of sand at arm's length, you can see a picture of the distant universe. According to Kaltenegger, it has thousands of galaxies and the possibility of billions of Earth-like planets. There have been no signs of life beyond Earth.
Astronomers think there are lots of places where life can flourish. It's hard to believe that he didn't take any pictures.
There are hundreds of billions of stars with planets in the same area. Scientists have tried to figure out how many Earth-like planets are in the sky. Their estimates ranged from 300 million to 10 billion.
There are about 100 billion to 200 billion galaxies in the universe, each one home to 100 million stars, and at least that number of planets.
NASA says there are 5,000 planets beyond our solar system. The "Goldilocks Zone" is where the temperature is just right for liquid water on the planet.
According to Kaltenegger, one out of five stars has a planet in its vicinity. "I like our chances of finding other Earth-like planets, and hopefully other Earth-like planets that also host life," Kaltenegger stated.
There are possibilities for life all over the world. Some ocean moons are leading candidates for alien life. There are oceans of liquid water on Jupiter's icy moon, and on the moon Enceladus, which is located on the other side of the planet. There is a chance that life could thrive there. Surely there are more than one Enceladuse in other stars.
Astronomers don't know if the odds of life arising elsewhere are high.
Kaltenegger said that the search is exciting because they don't know how easy or difficult life is.
Researchers measure the chemical makeup of the atmospheres of planets to see if they have the conditions to host life.
Liquid water, a continuous source of energy, carbon, and other elements are some of the ingredients that Astronomers look for when searching for life in distant worlds. Methane can be detected in an exoplanet's atmosphere. Kaltenegger believes that the building blocks of life are abundant in the universe.
A potential alien astronomer could pick up on signs of life from Earth in the same way. More than 2,000 stars, some with their own planets, have a front-row seat to look at the Earth as it passes around our sun, according to a study co-authored by Kaltenegger in 2011. It's within 300 light-years in our front yard.
The definition of a life-supporting planet is based on what we know about life on Earth. Astronomers can hone in on what makes a world a good place to live if they discover and study new worlds.
Astronomers have been searching for planets around sun-like stars since the first world outside our solar system was confirmed. Because these worlds are so far away, space-based telescopes like the Hubble Space Telescope have improved their ability to find planets.
The views into these distant planets will be allowed by Webb. If there are signs of life in the atmosphere of other worlds, we can only explain it by life.
In the first year, there are 70 planets to be studied. The signature of water, along with previously undetected evidence of clouds and haze, was captured by the telescope.
NASA said that while the Hubble Space Telescope has analyzed numerous exoplanet atmospheres over the past two decades, capturing the first clear detection of water in 2013).
Kaltenegger is part of a team that will use 200 hours of the telescope's time to study distant places, including worlds around a dim star 40 light-years from Earth.
Kaltenegger said that it was an amazing time to explore the universe. The first ever tool that collects enough light for us to start figuring out this fundamental question is the space telescope.
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