Planet Hunting with the James Webb Space Telescope
Modern space telescopes, enhanced by Artificial Intelligence, hold the potential to explore over 5,000 planets orbiting distant stars. Among the burning questions are these: Do any of these alien worlds support life? How common are living creatures in the cosmos? Unravel the mysteries using sensitive infrared detectors and the Webb Telescope, observing atmospheres near our Sun and discerning details from 50 million years after the universe's inception.
Modern space telescopes, enhanced by Artificial Intelligence, hold the potential to explore over 5,000 planets orbiting distant stars. Among the burning questions are these: Do any of these alien worlds support life? How common are living creatures in the cosmos? Unravel the mysteries using sensitive infrared detectors and the Webb Telescope, observing atmospheres near our Sun and discerning details from 50 million years after the universe's inception.
Related Articles
View AllSomething in the Search for Extraterrestrial Life Isn't Adding Up
As long as humankind has looked up at the sky, we’ve questioned whether there are others out there like us. Mathematics enabled us to get into space, but statistics point to a…
Shock! Panic! Is the Big Bang Theory Crumbling? (No, It Isn’t)
The James Webb Space Telescope has produced paradigm-shattering evidence about the universe from just 300 million years after the Big Bang. Though some are predicting the end of…
Searching for Signs of Life in 20 Kinds of Space Ice
One of the axioms for the search for life beyond the Earth has been “follow the water.” Perhaps scientists should broaden that to include frozen water, or ice, as recent…
M87* and Sagittarius A*: Picturing Black Holes
In 2022, history was made when an image of the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy was released. Even more momentous, the discovery confirmed the…
James Webb Space Telescope Unveils Awe-Inspiring Images of the Early Universe
The James Webb Space Telescope launched at the end of 2021 and, since it reached its target destination, has graced observers on Earth with amazing images of objects from the…
Why Isn’t Pluto a Planet Anymore? (Some Say It Still Is)
Is Pluto a planet? Astronomers agreed in 2006 to rename it a “dwarf planet.” But planetary scientists disagree. They say its status as a planet should never have been changed.…
Crash, Fail, Delay: Serious Issues Plague the Arecibo, Hubble, and Webb Telescopes
Things are going wrong in space and on Earth. The Arecibo radio telescope imploded on itself. The Hubble Space Telescope, in orbit, stopped functioning for a month. And we’re all…
The Complex Evolution Of The Telescope
Galileo is recognized as the first man to use a telescope to gaze at the stars and planets. But since then, his hand-constructed telescope and its advances have only made it more…
Planet 9 Coming Into Focus (And Maybe Planet 10, Too!)
A Caltech team is on the hunt for hidden planets. Building on research first published in 2016, they amassed enough unsexy but compelling evidence to book time at the Subaru…
The Cosmic Origins of Our Celestial Home: How Birth of Planet Earth Turns Our Gaze to the Heavens
How did the Solar System form, and how did Earth become the only planet where life has developed? In a story perhaps best experienced through a documentary film, we see that a…
Observing the Red Planet: How Early Science of Mars Became Science Fiction About Martians
As science learned more about Mars, it became an imagined realm of engineering feats made by a civilization perhaps advanced enough to attack and colonize Earth. Now humans are…