JWST is the pinnacle of our astronomical aspirations, the most sensitive telescope ever built by human hands. But can this feat of engineering resolve a question which has haunted us since the dawn of civilization - are we alone? So let's explore whether JWST could detect signatures of biology on another world, and if so under what conditions? Sponsored by Ground News, head to ground.news/coolworlds
Written and presented by Prof David Kipping, edited by Jorge Casas. Thanks to Ryan MacDonald ( / @martiancolonist ) for checking over some technical points.
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::References::
► Schwieterman et al., 2018, Exoplanet Biosignatures: A Review of Remotely Detectable Signs of Life, Astrobiology, 18, 6: arxiv.org/abs/1705.05791
► Kozakis et al. 2022, Is ozone a reliable proxy for molecular oxygen? I. The O2-O3 relationship for Earth-like atmospheres, A&A, 665, 156: arxiv.org/abs/2208.09415
► Leung et al. 2022, Alternative Methylated Biosignatures I: Methyl Bromide, A Capstone Biosignature, ApJ, 938, 6: arxiv.org/abs/2208.07393
► Lin et al. 2021, Differentiating Modern and Prebiotic Earth Scenarios for TRAPPIST-1e: High-resolution Transmission Spectra and Predictions for JWST, MNRAS, 505, 3562: arxiv.org/abs/2105.09319
► Fauchez et al. 2019, Impact of Clouds and Hazes on the Simulated JWST Transmission Spectra of Habitable Zone Planets in the TRAPPIST-1 System, ApJ, 887, 194: arxiv.org/abs/1911.08596
► Kaltenegger et al. 2020, The White Dwarf Opportunity: Robust Detections of Molecules in Earth-like Exoplanet Atmospheres with the James Webb Space Telescope, ApJ, 901, 1: arxiv.org/abs/2009.07274
► Limbach et al. 2022, A New Method for Finding Nearby White Dwarf Exoplanets and Detecting Biosignatures, MNRAS, 517, 2622: arxiv.org/abs/2209.12914
::Music::
Music licensed by SoundStripe.com (SS) [shorturl.at/ptBHI], Artlist.io, via Creative Commons (CC) Attribution License (creativecommons.org/licenses/..., or with permission from the artist
► 00:00 Hill - All Flesh Is as the Grass [open.spotify.com/track/1WuMK4...]
► 03:57 & 14:59 Hill - The Great Alchemist [open.spotify.com/track/3PAx36...]
► 08:01 & 18:50 Outside the Sky - Trillions
► 11:57 Hill - We Are Unceasing Beings [open.spotify.com/track/3Tnhaw...]
► 25:18 Joachim Heinrich - Stjärna
::Chapters::
00:00 Introduction
01:00 A Biosignature Primer
11:00 Sponsorship
12:21 TRAPPIST-1e
19:12 White Dwarfs
25:29 A Fool's Hope
27:05 Outro and credits
#JWST #AlienLife #Astrobiology