How The James Webb Space Telescope will See Oxygen in Alien Atmospheres
As astronomers examine the atmospheres of planets orbiting other stars, a new method of detecting oxygen, developed at the University of California Riverside, could provide evidence for worlds that may harbor life.
Astronomers currently know of more than 4,000 exoplanets, orbiting stars other than our own Sun. Many of these are found in the habitable — or Goldilocks — zone around their parent stars, where temperatures are neither too warm, nor too cold, for water to pool on their surface, potentially forming rivers, lakes, and oceans. However, no one has yet found a world where life has taken hold.
Here on Earth, the presence of lifeforms has filled our atmosphere with vast concentrations of oxygen — around 20 percent — far more than our planet would possess, were it devoid of life. This oxygen is the result of photosynthesis, carried out by algae, plants, and cyanobacteria.
Because of this, some astronomers are hoping that abnormal levels of oxygen might act as a telltale sign of life — even primitive life — on other worlds. Using the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, researchers at UC Riverside believe they have developed a new technique capable of seeing signs of oxygen molecules colliding with each other in the atmospheres of distant worlds.
