«We are the first generation in history with the technology to systematically search for intelligence in our galaxy's neighborhood»
Scientists are closer to finding alien life after discovering new «clear signs» of a habitable planet. Alien life has yet to be discovered in space, but a new study has found «clear» signs of a habitable planet.
Photo: ru.freepik.com
Researchers from the University of California, Riverside (UCR) have found that greenhouse gases similar to those emitted on Earth mean that a distant world has been terraformed — or artificially altered, writes the Daily Mail.
Signs of methane, ethane and propane, as well as gases consisting of nitrogen and fluorine or sulfur and fluorine, may indicate life forms using technology, since the gases are formed only during the production process.
Scientists conducted simulations on hypothetical planet and found that NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) could detect the gases as easily as ozone on Earth.
UCR astrobiologist and lead author of the study Edward Schwieterman said: «These gases are bad for us because we don't want to increase warming. But they would be good for a civilization that might want to prevent a coming ice age or terraform an uninhabitable planet in its own country.» system, as people have proposed for Mars.”
The five gases proposed by the researchers are used on Earth in industry, for example, to make computer chips, writes the Daily Mail.
The researchers chose for the simulation planet in the TRAPPIST-1 system because it is home to seven known rocky planets and is one of the best studied planetary systems.
They used the Planetary Spectrum Generator (PSG), which is a model designed to synthesize and extract data about a planet's atmosphere and surface.
The team simulated five gases on a hypothetical planet and calculated how many observations NASA's Space Telescope would require James Webb to detect them using his Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), which sees waves from 5 to 12 micrometers.
The MIRI instrument is equipped with both a camera and a spectrograph that separates incoming light by its frequency and records the resulting spectrum.
As the Daily Mail writes, MIRI is also equipped with sensitive detectors that allow it to see the radiation of distant galaxies at redshift , newly forming stars and faintly visible comets, as well as objects in the Kuiper belt.
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope can detect greenhouse gases as easily as ozone on Earth, a study has found. And the system showed that JWST detected gases in just five passes at high concentrations such as 100 parts per million (ppm).
Another advantage of searching for putative greenhouse gases is that they are extremely long-lived and can persist in an atmosphere similar to Earth's for up to 50,000 years.
«They are not needed to maintain a favorable climate will need to be replenished too often,» says Schwieterman.
Other members of the research team shared Edward Schwieterman's enthusiasm for the possibility of searching for signs of intelligent life, and how much closer modern technology has brought us to this goal.
Daniel Angerhausen from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology said: «Our thought experiment shows how powerful the next generation of telescopes will be. We are the first generation in history to have the technology to systematically search for life and intelligence in the vicinity of our galaxy.»
Свежие комментарии