We know that one out of five stars has a planet that could be like the Earth’s. It’s incredible. One in five – and we have 200 billion stars in the Milky Way, alone. So there are 40 billion possibilities for worlds like ours just in our galaxy.
I’m part of the Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) team, which is one of the instruments on the James Webb Space Telescope. We are looking at the Trappist-1 system right now – the first rocky worlds that are within this habitable zone. So, we’re already looking at some worlds that could harbour life.
Right now we are concentrating on gases – what’s breathing in and out. It’s like when you go into the forest and see footprints. You can say, ‘Oh, this is definitely a deer.’ But if you see something else – smudges in the dirt, for example – it could be life, but it could be something else.
So we make our telescopes look for life as we know it – while keeping our eyes open for anything weird or unexplained. You have to be very careful about interpreting signs of life that you don’t understand because there are other explanations like a kind of geology that’s not part of our planet and that you just haven’t thought about.
Life on Earth needs water, but water alone isn’t enough... Hopefully, we will find oxygen, but oxygen alone is not enough either. We’d also expect to find methane.
This is why early on I started to make these models of Earth through its geological time to figure out how long you could have spotted this life fingerprint here. Nobody had done this before. How long could you have seen that Earth was a habitable world? We came up with 2 billion years, because that’s how long the combination of oxygen and methane left an imprint in our air of life on this planet.
Denne historien er fra August 14, 2024-utgaven av The Independent.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra August 14, 2024-utgaven av The Independent.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Joshua is 'willing to die' in Wembley battle of Britain
Anthony Joshua has insisted that he is ready to “give everything to be victorious” against Daniel Dubois on Saturday, as the Britons clash at Wembley Stadium.
City's man for all occasions.could be named world No 1
Rodri may be first defensive midfielder to win Ballon d'Or
Liverpool overcome poor start to beat Milan in style
Another first for Arne Slot at Liverpool, and one that was much more significant than a debut win in this new Champions League.
Guardian parent company in talks to sell Observer
The Guardian Media Group (GMG) is in talks to sell The Observer newspaper to Tortoise Media, a news business launched in 2019 by a former BBC executive. The media giant is in exclusive discussions to sell the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.
'People can have a fantastic.second act. I'm living mine'
Actor and comic Omid Djalili is back for a fiery new stand-up tour. He tells Helen Coffey how he managed to channel rage into humour and why he's not leaving comedy to the young
Islamist party makes shock return to Kashmiri politics
Observers split on motivation of Jamaat-e-Islami, banned under terror laws and which boycotted elections for 30 years
US rapper charged with sex trafficking and racketeering
Sean \"Diddy\" Combs, the rapper and music mogul who has faced allegations of sexual abuse, was charged with racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution, according to a federal indictment unsealed yesterday.
Suspect in Trump shooting lurked for hours in bushes
The gunman accused of trying to assassinate Donald Trump hid in the bushes of the former president's Florida golf club for almost 12 hours, according to officials.
'I am a rapist', says husband of sexually abused woman
A French man accused of drugging his wife and recruiting dozens of strangers to rape her over a decade has declared in court: “I am a rapist, like everyone else in this courtroom.”
Hezbollah vows to retaliate after pager attack kills nine
Officials in Lebanon and Syria blame Israel for the explosions