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The Webb telescope will look for signs of life out there

It is possible that there is a certain gas balance that can give a clear life impression that cannot be maintained without the help of life.

“We need very favorable scenarios to find these vital fingerprints,” said Dr. Rathcke. “I’m not saying it’s not possible. I just think it’s overkill. We should be very lucky.”

To find such a balance, the Webb telescope needs to observe a planet that often passes in front of Trappist-1, said Joshua Krissansen-Totton, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

“If someone were to come forward in the next five years and say, ‘Yes, we found life with JWST,’ I would be very skeptical of that claim,” Dr. Krissansen-Totton said.

It’s possible that the James Webb Space Telescope simply won’t be able to find the biometric data. That mission may have to wait for the next generation of space telescopes, more than a decade later. It would study these exoplanets the same way people look at Mars or Venus in the night sky: the reflection of starlight against the black background of space, rather than passing in front of a star.

“Mostly, we are working on very important foundations for the telescopes of the future,” Dr. Rathcke predicted. “I would be very surprised if JWST introduced biometric fingerprint detection, but I hope it can be fixed. I mean, that’s basically why I do this job.”

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