This not-so-little piece of equipment
could change astronomy forever.
And it could be about to find alien life.
Maybe in a matter of days.
The James Webb Space Telescope
launched into space
on December 25th, 2021.
Its mission?
To study the history of our Universe
from the afterglow of the Big Bang
to the formation of solar systems
like our own.
This large infrared telescope
is 100 times
more powerful than the Hubble telescope.
It has 18 separate mirror segments
made of ultra-lightweight beryllium.
These unfold and adjust
to form a 6.5 m (21 ft) primary mirror.
Now that the Webb telescope
has reached its destination
1.5 million km (930,000 mi)
away from the Earth,
it should be able
to see into the past of our Universe.
It could be the key to discovering
alien life.
Unless they find us first.
If you were looking
for signs of life on distant exoplanets,
you wouldn’t
look for little green aliens.
You’d look for biosignatures.
In other words,
characteristics in a planet's atmosphere
that could be evidence of life
in the past or present.
Imagine an alien astronomer
from a distant galaxy
pointing a telescope toward Earth.
The biosignatures they’d make note of
are the presence of oxygen and methane
in our atmosphere.
Without lifeforms
breathing these two gases in and out,
these elements would react
with others and disappear.
So the James Webb telescope
will look for the presence of oxygen
and methane too.
First, you’d need
to detect the presence
of an exoplanet around a distant star.
You could do this
through the transit method.
As a planet passes in front of a star,
you’d observe its light
slightly diminishing.
After that planet passes
in front of its star many times,
you’d have enough data
to take measurements of its atmosphere.
You’d be able to see how much light goes
through its atmosphere.
And you could determine
what atmospheric elements exist there
based on the way the light disperses.
With a telescope as powerful as the Webb,
you could gather enough data
after a planet has passed
its star as few as five to ten times.
So after only 20 hours
of investigating a planet,
you could detect conditions for life.
But, then what?
“100% for sure gonna die!”
Well, you wouldn’t go public
with this information right away.
You’d probably want
to follow the confidence
of life detection scale,
commonly referred to as CoLD.
This is an approach
that scientists at NASA
are looking to establish.
It would set up a new framework
for discussing how close we are
to finding life beyond our planet.
The scale would have seven levels.
Level one would be the detection
of biosignatures.
As more data is collected,
you’d climb the scale to level seven.
At this point,
you'd likely find alien life.
That's when the whole world freaks out
and powerful aliens
beam down to conquer our planet.
Right?
Not exactly.
If we discover life
using the Webb telescope,
it would be more likely that we are
the powerful, intelligent beings.
The bombshell announcement of alien life
would be a lot
less dramatic than the movies suggest.
It could take decades.
Be prepared for a slow progression
of countless mini announcements.
And remember that
the distances between Earth
and exoplanets of interest are vast.
If you decided
to take an interstellar trip
to one of those,
like the exoplanet TRAPPIST-1e,
it would take you decades.
But scientists believe that this planet
may have atmospheric conditions
similar to ours.
Or at least similar to the Earth
two and a half to four billion years ago.
So maybe we could find microscopic
life there.
A discovery like this
would elicit many different reactions.
For you, it could be a dream come true.
For others, it could be concerning.
It could affect your entire
understanding of life in the Universe.
Surely there would be
plenty of ramifications
to a discovery so huge.
But would they be as big as discovering
aliens are already here
living inside the Earth?
Well, that’s a story for another WHAT IF.