The James Webb Space Telescope is an amazing device that recently showed the first color picture of its instruments. The excitement after this event has not subsided yet, and there is another sensation. It is about water found on a distant exoplanet. Is there life there?
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Water is the basis of life
At this moment, Earth is the only planet known to us where life exists. Scientists believe that the basis of any existence is water. Following this lead, if it appears anywhere else, it is a premise for life elsewhere. And here comes the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) with a real breakthrough.
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Detecting life anywhere other than on Earth is one of the main goals of many astronomers, but there are few who study extrasolar planets and astrobiology. They looked at JWST materials that come from an exoplanet WASP-96 b. In short – there is water there.
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JWST discovered water on an exoplanet
NASA used an instrument to locate the water NIRISS (Near-Infrared Images and Slitless Spectrograph). After delving into the atmosphere of the said exoplanet from the Carina nebula, they examined 141 data samples. Each of them shows a specific wavelength characteristic of water.
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—The NIRISS graph proves that there is water on WASP-96 b.
These studies and data are only a small sample of the capabilities of the James Webb Space Telescope. For the first time, water on an exoplanet was detected by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2013, although the information provided by JWST is much more readable. For the first time, the secrets of extrasolar planets are open to mankind and it’s hard to even guess what scientists can find there.
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There are many more planets to live
According to theoretical astronomy, there are about 300 million planets in the Milky Way itself that we could inhabit, some of which are about the size of the Earth. Add to that 5,000 extrasolar planets, hundreds of which could prove to be a new home for humanity. For now, they are in the theory zone.
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Water alone is not sufficient for life to exist at once. The chemical composition of the soil, water and atmosphere are crucial here. So what if there would be seas or oceans on a foreign planet if the air was contaminated? Then it is difficult to talk about the possibility of living on a foreign planet.
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We look forward to receiving more data from the James Webb Space Telescope. Nobody knows what tomorrow will bring, and the first research is extremely interesting. The future starts today.
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Marcin Watemborski, journalist of WP Tech
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