"The significance of a finding that there are other beings who share this universe with us
would be absolutely phenomenal. It would be an epochal event in human history." – Carl Sagan
Humanity started to ask questions, from the moment our consciousness, awoke from a dull slumber.
From being hunter gatherers, to becoming farmers,
and then industrialists and astronauts, we have come a long way.
And throughout the journey of our species, there is one question that has kept us curious.
Are we alone?
We have looked at the heavens, and tried to make sense of it. We have imagined beings,
much superior than us, descend down, and bless us with their powers.
We have scribbled our walls, made monuments, and told countless stories,
in honor of beings from the skies.
And yet, our cosmic cousins never came for us!
Does it mean that we are alone? Or is it,
that we as a species, are the most civilized in the whole universe?
May be, or maybe not?
But the answers have finally begun to greet us,
coming from across 4.2 light years away from our planet.
Welcome to Lab three sixty, and before we proceed with today’s video,
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Forty trillion kilometers away from the Solar System, in the constellation of Centaurus, lies
a small star-system, called the Proxima Centauri, where life as we know it, might be thriving.
Compared to our Sun, Proxima Centauri is 500 times dimmer, and hence not visible to the naked eye.
Why then, is the star-system so significant, in our quest to finding alien life?
Our cosmic explorers, while scanning the star-system,
have discovered three planets orbiting the red-dwarf, Proxima A, B, and C.
And Proxima B has emerged to be interesting. Very-very interesting!
Discovered in 2016 by the European Space Observatory,
Proxima B orbits its star every 11.2 earth days. And what’s interesting,
is that it lies in the star-system’s habitable zone, which means, it could contain liquid water.
Another interesting thing about the planet, is that it is tidally locked to its star,
just how the moon is to the earth.
Which means, one side of the planet lies in a state of perpetual darkness.
While the other side is bright and too hot, for life to sustain.
How is it that the planet is potentially habitable then, you ask?
Newer modeling work by NASA suggests, that heat could be distributed evenly via winds,
making the cold and dark side potentially habitable.
If life were to emerge on that planet, and thrive to become a civilization, they would need light.
Civilization there, may deploy powerful mirrors,
or require very bright L E D-style lights, to illuminate their world.
And this is where humanity’s most powerful telescope enters the scene.
We have all seen what the James Webb Space Telescope can do.
It has given us some incredible images of cosmic objects, millions of light years away from earth.
Not just images, the James Webb telescope has detected water on a distant exoplanet,
and it did so quite effectively.
In fact, the analysis of Wasp-96 b was so thorough,
that scientists could dive deep, into the atmosphere make-up of the exoplanet.
With Proxima B being much more closer than Wasp-96,
imagine what Webb could discover once it turns towards it.
NASA is going to use the Near Infrared Instrument on Webb, to look for tell-tale signs of L E
D light-waves in the light from the planet, by detecting artificial light if it exists.
In 2019, radio signals were detected coming from the direction of Proxima b,
for five minutes. Since then, it has never been detected.
Astronomers now believe that the source of the radio wave was a human anomaly,
but an alien sign cannot be ruled out, because the anomaly was never discovered.
That’s why the curiosity around Proxima B being habitable, is only second to the Trappist system.
The good news is that NASA has promised that Webb will soon turn its attention towards these worlds.
Before the launch of Webb, the scientific community
held subtle skepticism of how well Webb’s instruments will perform,
and now we know that they are working better than expected, even by NASA scientists.
And in case, just in case Webb fails to find artificial light,
there is no need to worry, because, science is all about innovations, improvements and advancements.
Just how Webb succeeded the Hubble, the work on Webb’s successor has already started.
Yes, you heard that right.
The Large Ultraviolet Optical Infrared Surveyor, commonly known as LUVOIR,
is a multi-wavelength space telescope concept, being developed by NASA.
While LUVOIR is a concept for a general-purpose observatory, it has the key science goal of
characterizing a wide range of exoplanets, including those that might be habitable.
An additional goal is to enable a broad range of astrophysics, from the re-ionization epoch,
through galaxy formation and evolution, to star and planet formation.
Basically, Webb two-point o!
And while this will take another decade or so before it takes off for space, for now,
we have Webb, unfolding our universe like never before.
So, is there life on Proxima B?
Like I said in the beginning, we don’t know.
An interesting thing about tidally locked planets like Proxima B,
is that the side-facing light reaches boiling temperatures, and produces constant hurricanes.
Therefore, it seems that there is a small region on the planet,
where life may exist, if it is possible.
Since Proxima B is also very close to its star, oxygen and nitrogen may escape from
its atmosphere, which leaves the planet lack of two essential elements for life.
When hydrogen comes to the mix, even worse is the case, as it may lose all the liquid water.
But, there is so much we don’t know about alien worlds.
Life, as we know it on earth, might only be one of the many forms in the vastness of space.
Research at hot vents in the seafloor, suggests life can survive temperatures
a little above 120°C. DNA molecules,
at least under surface conditions, lose their integrity at temperatures between 120–140°C,
and without DNA, life as we know it cannot exist.
Yet, we know that carbon, hydrogen, and other essential building blocks of life,
are plentiful, under even more extreme temperatures, deep inside Earth.
For us to understand the depths of space, we must understand the depths of our planet.
But that is a topic for another time.
For now, we have got Webb, and with its help,
astronomers will be able to visibly observe Proxima B, and investigate the further
possibility of life on it, over the next few decades, or next few years or even months.
It may probably answer the biggest question of mankind: “Are we alone?”
A brand-new chapter in astronomy has begun, and we are lucky to be living in this era.
In our quest for life,
we have arrived at a fork in the road. We've discovered thousands of planets in our Milky Way
galaxy, with many of them being the size of Earth, and orbiting in their stars' habitable zones.
We know that the galaxy contains trillions of planets. Our space and ground telescopes,
as well as remote sensing technology, are becoming increasingly powerful.
So far, the only life we've encountered is right here at home.
For the time being, we're staring into space, hoping that someone or something is staring back!
Go Webb! Here’s to unfolding the universe!
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