Wouldn't it be exciting to find out if other life forms existed in outer space? Astronomers at the Cornell University are thinking ahead and planning to study distant exoplanets orbiting dead stars after the next generation of observatories is set out.
The astronomers plan to explore exoplanets for fingerprints suggestive of life, whether past or present. The scientists at Cornell published their research on Thursday at the Astrophysical Journal Letters, which offers a citation to help other cosmologists make sense of the information they find.
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Is There Life in Exoplanets?
An exoplanet is a planet found outside the solar system. Today, it is confirmed that there are about 4,000 exoplanets. The majority of which was discovered by the Kepler space telescope that was launched in 2009. It was named after the astronomer, Johannes Kepler.
Kepler's mission was to see how many planets it could detect orbiting some 150,000 stars in one tiny spot in the sky. However, its ultimate purpose is to find out whether there are places where life might evolve, which was ordinary in the universe or vanishingly unique.
The answer that Kepler provided astrophysicists was pretty straightforward. It found that there are more planets than there are stars and that there were at least 25 billion places where life could exist in our galaxy alone. With the discovery that the galaxy is packed with planets, many scientists are reenergized in a quest for the search for life outside our solar system.
Earlier this year, scientists have also developed a new method for detecting oxygen in exoplanet atmospheres that may speed for the search for extraterrestrial life.
One possible indication of life, called biosignature, is the presence of oxygen in an exoplanet's atmosphere. The University of California Riverside helped develop the new technique.
The team will use NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to detect a strong signal that oxygen molecules produce when they collide. This signal could help scientists tell between living and nonliving planets.
Planetary Marks
A white dwarf is what stars like the Sun become after they have used up all their nuclear fuel. Near the end of its nuclear burning phase, this type of star expels most of its outer material, creating a planetary nebula. In the end, only the hot core of the star remains.
Scientists are considering the possibility of new life theoretically emerging in the remains of these white dwarves.
Lisa Kaltenegger, an astronomer at Cornell, said that if their team did find signs of life in these long-dead starts, they would further investigate whether life survived the star's death or re-emerged after.
Thea Kozakis, a graduate student from Cornell, said that if they observe any kind of motion in exoplanets, other scientists can find out what is in its atmosphere by referring back to their paper, serving as a catalogue.
She says that could match it to spectral fingerprints and look for signs of life. Kozakis adds that their work could act as a guide, allowing observers to know what to look for.
