Thread 16716262 - /sci/ [Archived: 476 hours ago]

Anonymous
7/5/2025, 5:01:27 AM No.16716262
holding_out_ass_plant_detector
holding_out_ass_plant_detector
md5: 5703cc36a62fed7256690297cc733dd8🔍
what is the hold up on JWST finding signs of life on exoplanets by looking for photosynthesizing signs via the spectra that pass through the atmos of exoplanets wtf are they waiting for

they talked this ability up a lot while I waited a decade for it to actually launch and its nothing but crickets on the photosynthesis detection
Replies: >>16716277 >>16716409 >>16716412 >>16717662
Anonymous
7/5/2025, 5:34:47 AM No.16716277
>>16716262 (OP)
because actual astronomy is about studying properties of astronomical objects. Muh signs of life is pop sci crap that carries no significance.
>b-b-but le heckin photosynthesis
could be interesting to investigate, but it’s at the bottom of JWST’s bucket list because there are no immediate consequences for actual astronomy
Replies: >>16716285 >>16716287 >>16716312 >>16717614 >>16717687
Anonymous
7/5/2025, 5:46:25 AM No.16716285
>>16716277
verifying that life is common seems much more important much more fundamental than cataloging the size and temperature of exoplanets. It doesn't just seem more fundamental and impactful it is. That knowledge would help us as a species greatly we would have a much better grasp of what the apparent nature of being alive is about. My personal opinion is that life is probably extremely common. I wish they'd get off their hands and give us these important answers.
Replies: >>16716288
Anonymous
7/5/2025, 5:52:26 AM No.16716287
>>16716277
plus, mein dude, they advertised this as a specific goal and built the thing to have the ability. If they found that there are no life signs that'd be important to know too. It would be extremely strange if earth is rare given we find ourselves here and there a boatload of stars and plenty of water everywhere.
Replies: >>16716289
Anonymous
7/5/2025, 5:54:59 AM No.16716288
>>16716285
>That knowledge would help us as a species greatly
How so? More pop sci articles about
>SCIENTISTS DISCOVER LIFE ON A REMOTE EXOPLANET
ie idiots misinterpreting presence of certain chemicals for actual direct evidence of life?

I don’t see any viable way to directly confirm cellular life on exoplanets. Everything you can propose may be explained some other way. And even then, who gives a shit? Ok, there are bacteria on some planet 3000 lights years away. And? We cannot even study them properly.
Replies: >>16716296 >>16716299 >>16716452
Anonymous
7/5/2025, 5:56:42 AM No.16716289
>>16716287
>they advertised this as a specific goal
They advertised it to (You), a layman high on popslop. JWST is a scientific instrument and not some toy for the general public.
Anonymous
7/5/2025, 6:09:24 AM No.16716296
>>16716288
pearls before swine, trample and rend ..
i would like to know what and who i am and i would like to know the nature of the reality i find myself in so i can have understanding and reason more accurately about just what sort of situation i am in. The meaning is obvious and far more important than cataloging exoplanets. ALSO one of the major if not the primary goal of the telescope is to search for photosynthesis. Given this is part of its mission it's fake and gay that they went dark after the thing actually went up beyond the usual shit we got from chandra. JWST can do much more than chandra and finding plant life is the breakthrough that chandra couldn't do, other than that JWST can look further and see more whcih means cataloging the traits of exoplanets much faster than chandra YET measuring the atmos of exoplanets is THE major feature chandra lacked the ability to do.

yet as i said, you are likely swine and thus you'll trample the pearls and rend me so go on then haha ..

i m looking for someone who has some knowledge of why this advertised ability is no longer mentioned since it successfully launched not contrarian porkies
Replies: >>16716305
Anonymous
7/5/2025, 6:13:54 AM No.16716299
>>16716288
>We cannot even study them properly.
I m amused at how immature and simple minded this reads sound it's cute.

see? your argument is "why study something if you know ahead of time you can only learn so much" that shows me you are kind of stupid. I don't know how to write it nicely. Maybe immature it's kind of cute of you but also annoying a bit. Think man why do YOU think knowledge of the nature of life in the universe could be important or not? Simply saying such knowledge is useless cuz .. uh ... cuz it is TRUST ME! is just silly

Earlier today it occurred to me most of the people on this site are really basic so you can't really hold it against them it's kind of endearing even.
Replies: >>16716305 >>16716455
Anonymous
7/5/2025, 6:20:53 AM No.16716305
>>16716296
You would like many things, but none of them carry scientific significance. Go ahead and build your own spacetoy. JWST has a different purpose.
>>16716299
How do you propose we study bacteria on exoplanets? It’s going to be about as insightful and productive as trying to guess a person’s by smelling his farts. Touch grass and go do something other than soiencing, pompous retard.
Replies: >>16716306
Anonymous
7/5/2025, 6:21:55 AM No.16716306
>>16716305
*a person’s height
Anonymous
7/5/2025, 6:30:53 AM No.16716312
>>16716277
>Answering one of mankinds most poignant existential dilemmas is not important for the advancement of man's scientific knowledge
>Knowing the gas composition of a random exoplanet orbiting Teta-Tau-Bunda 34t red dwarf star is what science really is about
I fucking hate you retarded astronomers so fucking much. Literal soulless bugpeople looking at stars
Replies: >>16716318
Anonymous
7/5/2025, 6:38:45 AM No.16716318
>>16716312
>muh hecking poignant existential dilemmas
not science and you must be 18+ to post
Replies: >>16716321
Anonymous
7/5/2025, 6:46:19 AM No.16716321
Average Soytronomer
Average Soytronomer
md5: 3a20cde14647223fbc7e550d82b55c1a🔍
>>16716318
>muh hecking science
How do you cope being an "expert" on a useless field that doesn't make anyone's life better?
Couldn't be me. Keep looking for space gasses, bro.
Replies: >>16716322
Anonymous
7/5/2025, 6:49:01 AM No.16716322
>>16716321
I enjoy learning about how Nature works. I don’t particularly care about muh applications or muh existential questions. I’m neither an engineer nor a philosopher for a reason.
Anonymous
7/5/2025, 10:11:45 AM No.16716409
>>16716262 (OP)
The results were simply too shocking to release.
Anonymous
7/5/2025, 10:13:58 AM No.16716412
>>16716262 (OP)
On a sidenote is the jwst the peak a telescope can get because it sees infrared?

What could its sucessor look like if not?
Assuming the role is similar.
Replies: >>16716422 >>16716460 >>16716467 >>16716471
Anonymous
7/5/2025, 10:54:25 AM No.16716422
>>16716412
They talk about using gravitational lensing to get much better views, the first video I saw said it was a very big engineering challenge because they need to put the telescope pretty far beyond Neptune to get where the sun's gravitational lens is, but someone mentioned it would be much easier to use Earth's and so probably that.
Anonymous
7/5/2025, 12:20:43 PM No.16716452
>>16716288
I agree, but I think the same for astronomy. So we discover a quasar about to blast us with gamma beams, great there’s nothing we could do about it. Same for asteroids; the funding and control structures to deal with a life threatening rock cant exist, nobody will foot the bill that everyone benefits from. I know this because they’re already struggling with this as they said on The Sky at Night.
Anonymous
7/5/2025, 12:25:27 PM No.16716455
>>16716299
If you want billions of dollars spent on something, you should fund it.
Anonymous
7/5/2025, 12:33:22 PM No.16716456
Exoplanet_LHS_475_b_(Transmission_Spectrum)
Exoplanet_LHS_475_b_(Transmission_Spectrum)
md5: 761aca508dbe3efc75f9d13824fc6e61🔍
It was always extremely unlikely that JWST would find life.
Transit spectroscopy works well when the planet is a significant fraction of the host star's diameter. So Jupiter mass planets for Sun-like stars, but rocky planets are possible to study around red dwarfs (M dwarfs). So Earth like planets around Sun-like stars are out of the question. If M dwarfs turn out to be uninhabitable due to stellar activity then it's hopeless.
Then in terms of features, transit spectroscopy is not sensitive to what is on the surface. So it cannot measure plants photosynthesizing on the planet. Only what is in the atmosphere. And only molecules which have strong features in JWST's wavelength range. Molecular oxygen does not have features in that range. Ozone (O3) does, but it is harder to detect.
Then when it comes to actually observing the transits you need to stack dozens of transits to get enough signal to measure it's atmosphere. This takes years for slower orbiting planets. It also means the first published planets are very close in and have rapid orbits. So far, the rocky planets that have been published are all consistent with having no significant atmosphere at all. There are no high quality transit spectra of any rocky planet.
Pic related is the best transit spectrum so far of a rocky planet by JWST. This is two transits, about 9 hours of telescope time. As you can see the spectrum is consistent with anything, it's not even clear if it has an atmosphere.
What has also emerged in the era of JWST is that there are lots of systematic effects in transit spectroscopy which previous data didn't have the sensitivity to see, (sunspots, activity, extractions, correlated noise). These can limit the overall sensitivity that can be reached.

JWST was never designed to find life. Exoplanets were an afterthought, it was built to study early galaxies, which it does very well.
Anonymous
7/5/2025, 12:41:11 PM No.16716460
ESA-Ariel
ESA-Ariel
md5: 9f730751d3eaa9f992ecfb023925f530🔍
>>16716412
>On a sidenote is the jwst the peak a telescope can get because it sees infrared?
No. Firstly you can always build a bigger telescope. The infrared can be powerful, but it doesn't tell you everything. What you mean by peak depends on what you want to study. If the answer is exoplanets, then no, it's not the peak.

JWST is in high demand, and transit spectroscopy takes a lot of interruptions of other programs. So ultimately JWST won't study that many planets in detail. ESA is building a mission called ARIEL, which covers the same broad wavelength range, but it can observe the whole range at once (JWST cannot). And it was designed exclusively for transit spectroscopy, even though it is smaller than JWST it may reach deeper because lower systematics. It will study the atmospheres of around 1000 exoplanets, or various types. Many of those planets will be selected from ESA's other mission, PLATO. PLATO is a transit survey like Kepler and TESS, but more optimized to find earth like planets that can be followed up. ARIEL will launch in 2029, PLATO in 2026.
Replies: >>16716467
Anonymous
7/5/2025, 12:50:08 PM No.16716467
media_Gh6J39ZaQAA4N85
media_Gh6J39ZaQAA4N85
md5: 1b0cde6b1b78b7f4d48a8e9609671cc7🔍
>>16716460
>>16716412
Then you could say transit spectroscopy will always be limited. What is really needed to definitively find life is direct imaging. That doesn't mean seeing detail on the planet, just resolving it from it's host star so you can take spectra.

There is a lot on the horizon for direct imaging.

First there is WFIRST/Roman, which will have a coronagraph to block out the light of host stars. But it's only a technology test, it will not image rocky planets. Maybe some jupiter like ones. Roman is only JWST sized, and the instrument covers some visible and infrared. Little hope of finding life.

The bigger excitement is on the ground in the form of the European Southern Observatory's Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), at an 39 meters in diameter. Pic related is it a few weeks ago. It's really coming along. With adaptive optics it will beat JWST resolution by a factor of 6. On the ground coronagraph is harder, but working in the mid infrared there is some hope that ELT will be able to image rocky planets around some very close by M stars. This would be tremendous, if there are planets there. I wouldn't bet on it finding life, because the number of stars it can go deep enough is small. But to be seen, soon. They expect first light in 2029. ELT will transform a lot fields.
Replies: >>16716471 >>16716477
Anonymous
7/5/2025, 1:02:05 PM No.16716471
imageCarousel.imageformat.lightbox.1498610003
imageCarousel.imageformat.lightbox.1498610003
md5: edd6138c082fd752c0420cf1903627ad🔍
>>16716412
>>16716467
On the longer term there are two serious projects aimed at directly imaging many earth-like planets around Sun-like stars, with enough detail to find life.

The first is NASA's Habitable Worlds Observatory, which grew out of the HabEx and LUVOIR studies. It is expected to be at least 6 meters across, with a super high contrast coronograph capable of imaging earth like planets (at ratio of planet to star brightness of about 10 billion). HWO would mainly target visible light, which would allow it to measure oxygen, ozone and potentially green planets on the surface. But it's not expected until the 2040's, and the recent cuts to the NASA astrophysics budget put it in danger.

ESA is also studying a complimentary mission, one working in the infrared but with the ability to directly image earth-like planets (unlike JWST). This requires a huge telescope, or an array of telescopes acing as an interferometer. The mission is called LIFE, but a similar mission was studies before (ESA's Darwin and NASA's TPF-I). The real challenge is that the telescopes have to fly independently with incredibly precision a few hundred meters apart. LIFE would work in the mid infrared, it could detect molecules like ozone, it would also measure the surface temperature of these planets (which HWO cannot). LIFE is in a long list of missions being built, and if it happens at all it will be 2050+.

So no JWST isn't the peak. The infrared is powerful, but it only tells you some things about these planets. Ultimately transit spectroscopy is limited. Direct imaging is much harder.
Anonymous
7/5/2025, 1:19:50 PM No.16716477
>>16716467
>ELT will transform a lot fields.
But.... /sfg/ told me ground based telescoped are bad and only space telescopes are good??!?!
Replies: >>16716518
Anonymous
7/5/2025, 2:05:56 PM No.16716518
>>16716477
They're also apparently surprised (after decades) when a huge space telescope is launcher that it doesn't immediate solve all outstanding questions. And because there is basically only room in the budget for one space telescope at a time you cannot really cover all needs with a couple good space telescopes alone.
Anonymous
7/6/2025, 3:54:17 PM No.16717614
>>16716277
>could be interesting to investigate, but it’s at the bottom of JWST’s bucket list because there are no immediate consequences for actual astronomy
That is remarkably short sighted.
If JWST were to find signs of life you can be certain that tens of billions of dollars would be made available to make more instruments to look into this in even greater detail, finding that would massively benefit your ungrateful lot.
Replies: >>16717678
Anonymous
7/6/2025, 4:42:52 PM No.16717662
GH7J0_YaUAEYQxA
GH7J0_YaUAEYQxA
md5: 1f6d88ffe129182c97a3b25a391acbaf🔍
>>16716262 (OP)
What's so awesome is that they sell the public on the transparent lie of looking for life (they know taxpayers aren't going to fork over $10,000,000,000.00 to satisfy egghead curiosity about gas quasars), and then what happens lol?
Do they leave things open ended? Do they at least throw the public a bone of hope. No.
Those same people have the stones to immediately dismiss any biosignatures out of hand and call anyone interested in them incredibly silly.
It's such a transparently contemptuous, brazen, and chadly arrogance that NASA has toward the public.
Replies: >>16717687
Anonymous
7/6/2025, 5:14:33 PM No.16717678
>>16717614
>dude people will fund you if you do their bidding
A real scientist’s goal is to investigate natural phenomena. The moment this is replaced with whoring yourself out to the whims of the general populace or the government, science goes to shit. This has already happened to a large extent with how grant funding works. Don’t wonder why science is so shit nowadays and nothing original pops out.
Anonymous
7/6/2025, 5:29:12 PM No.16717687
jwst-tac-cycle-4-science-categories
jwst-tac-cycle-4-science-categories
md5: be6e4bc4966ae90574ad6d0d6b11c25d🔍
>>16716277
>it’s at the bottom of JWST’s bucket list because there are no immediate consequences for actual astronomy
This isn't actually true. Like most telescopes the time is spread over many topics. This figure shows the most recent cycle of proposals. A quarter of the time is going to Exoplanets. On top of this there is a very large Director's Discretionary Time program on exoplanet transients specifically. By no means small, especially considering that the original proposal for JWST had nothing to do with exoplanets.

>>16717662
>sell the public on the transparent lie of looking for life
That is a a lie. The topic of NGST was "visiting a time when galaxies were young". Nothing to do with exoplanets or life. Nothing serious said it was going to detect life. If you were mislead that is your fault for not investigating your sources.
Replies: >>16717745
Anonymous
7/6/2025, 6:55:45 PM No.16717745
>>16717687
It is not a lie.
I remember seeing the model at the museum at cape Canaveral as a young lad, and every single exhibit which mentioned it talking about exoplanets.

Also, there is plenty of marketing material out there:
>https://science.nasa.gov/universe/exoplanets/a-new-view-of-exoplanets-with-webb/#:~:text=When%20NASA's%20James%20Webb%20Space,the%20star%20to%20wobble%20slightly.

>https://sites.dartmouth.edu/dujs/2021/11/07/how-jwst-will-find-habitable-planets-outside-the-solar-system/#:~:text=When%20the%20James%20Webb%20Space,2020;%20NASA%2C%202021).

>and so on and so on, there are thousands of articles from NASA and pushed out to other sources by NASA PR

Don't be a disingenuous faggot. If you're going to lie about something, lie about something that takes more than 5 minutes to falsify.
Replies: >>16717845
Anonymous
7/6/2025, 9:15:50 PM No.16717845
>>16717745
>I remember seeing the model at the museum at cape Canaveral as a young lad, and every single exhibit which mentioned it talking about exoplanets.
Exoplanets=/=finding life. Of course it would study exoplanets. It was not motivated by that science case, it was not sold on that basis. But like any general observatory it will study lots of things.
>https://science.nasa.gov/universe/exoplanets/a-new-view-of-exoplanets-with-webb/#:~:text=When%20NASA's%20James%20Webb%20Space,the%20star%20to%20wobble%20slightly.
Doesn't mention life at all.
>https://sites.dartmouth.edu/dujs/2021/11/07/how-jwst-will-find-habitable-planets-outside-the-solar-system/#:~:text=When%20the%20James%20Webb%20Space,2020;%20NASA%2C%202021).
Not NASA, and it it talks about planets capable of sustaining life. Not finding life.