Cameras are the foundational instruments of every space telescope.
Their eyes have allowed us to see the ‘unseeable,’
shedding light on how planets are born
and even the approximate age of the universe.
And now, a new, groundbreakingly sensitive camera is pushing the limits of what we can detect even further…
to include the chemical signatures of alien life.
When the James Webb Space Telescope finally launches,
its suite of next-generation imaging systems will give us views of the universe we’ve never seen before.
But there’s one important instrument that James Webb doesn’t have—
one that could unlock the secret recipe of extraterrestrial life.
That’s where this new camera comes in.
Developed by a team at NIST, it is composed of sensors so sensitive
that they count single particles of light, or photons, to generate an image.
And it was developed partially in the hopes of flying it on NASA’s next, next-generation telescope: Origins.
I think what we can offer with our detector technology,
is that because they are superconducting, they’re more sensitive and they also have lower noise.
All cameras do the same thing: analyze light—
but different kinds of systems can be used to see different things.
Wide-field cameras look at objects in various wavelengths,
and are actually what helped us take the first image ever of an exoplanet in visible light.
But to find out details about an exoplanet, like its chemical makeup and potential to harbor life,
a spectrograph is used.
Similar to how a prism splits light into a rainbow,
this instrument breaks down light within the EM spectrum into its component parts.
By doing so, it allows us to study any object that absorbs light and identify its unique characteristics.
An interferometer can then come in to make precise measurements
of the object’s relative position and brightness.
What’s important to note is that every one of these cameras is equipped with sensors,
which translate their light measurements into electrical signals.
And the more sensitive they are, the better.
That’s why NIST’s new camera is so exciting—
it has over 1,000 sensors and uses materials that can achieve superconductivity
when they reach a cold enough temperature.
This transition temperature is the point at which a material no longer has any resistance.
With future space telescopes, NASA is always trying to figure out better ways
to improve the signal and reduce the noise.
Especially for things like exoplanet spectroscopy, which is the application that we’re really targeting.
Remember that a spectrograph can identify the characteristics of any object that absorbs light?
With more sensitive detectors, it can pick up on a broader range of wavelengths more easily.
This increases its chance of spotting signs of alien life.
Basically, the idea is that every molecule or chemical element has a very unique spectral signature.
The signals of interest lie between wavelengths of about 2 microns out to 20 microns in wavelength.
If we’re going to look at chemical signs of life on other planets or even on the Earth,
all of those elements have absorption lines within that range of wavelengths.
Elements like oxygen, water vapor, and gases like CO2 lie within this range,
and are just some of the signs of life that we’re on the lookout for.
But this range of wavelengths is extremely difficult to work in,
because the photons interacting with these elements don’t have much energy and are hard to detect.
To overcome this obstacle, NIST had to think small.
As soon as a photon meets the detector array, it absorbs into its nanometer scale wires.
This encounter generates lots of heat, disrupting the superconductivity in a tiny region of the wire
for a flash of an instant, creating a pulse.
Because each pulse conveys information, being able to sense the smallest amounts of light energy
has the potential to yield huge rewards.
By stitching together these pulses of information,
we could not only gather many more clean signals potentially indicating extraterrestrial life,
but perhaps even detect the interactions of elusive dark matter with other particles out in space.
But before we get ahead of ourselves, the NIST team still has a way to go
to realize the dreams of their high performance camera.
This is basically a very first, rudimentary demonstration that we’ve done, creating this array.
There’s still a lot of work to do to optimize it.
If you want to learn even more about all the ways that we’re searching for alien life—
and the planets that could support it—
then check out our video on NASA’s exoplanet hunter here.
Let us know in the comments below if you’d like us to cover more stories about how we’re searching for aliens,
and make sure to subscribe to Seeker for all your space news.
Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next time.