One of the capabilities of the Webb Space Telescope that its predecessor, the Hubble, is unable to do is to study planets orbiting distant stars. And also detect life on them by searching and identifying biosignatures.
During the new work scientists investigated the possibility of using the Hubble Space Telescope to search for industrial pollutants in the atmospheres of exoplanets. Astronomers paid particular attention to chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). On Earth, they are produced on an industrial scale as refrigerants and cleaning agents. CFCs are known to have already created a huge hole in the Earth’s ozone layer in the 1980s before an international ban on their use went into effect.
Artistic image of TRAPPIST-1e, a potentially habitable planet the size of Earth orbiting a red dwarf 40 light-years from the Sun. Authors and rights: NASA/Reaction Propulsion Laboratory-California Institute of Technology
Scientists are confident that if they find traces of these powerful greenhouse gas emissions, which have long atmospheric residence times, they will discover alien life. “It is almost certain that CFCs will come from civilization – intelligent life capable of rampant industrialization,” the study’s authors said.
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A biosignature is any manifestation of the effects of life that scientifically proves the existence of life in the past or present.
