On August 13, NASA reported that the James Webb Space Telescope has reduced the chances that a world that was similar to Earth in size and was in the habitable zone of its system, has reduced the chances of having life.
The James Webb has the ability to detect atmospheres on other planets. even analyze the atmospheric gases to determine if there may be any biomarker, we are still going to put the subject of biomarkers in quotes because the matter is not well cooked, a biomarker would be a gas that would be caused by life forms and then it would be the clue in this police investigation that would give us the key to affirm that if this planet is similar to the Earth, that if it is in the habitable zone, if it has water and on top of that it has a gas that is a product of life forms as we know them, it is surely a planet with life, not 100%, but with a very high probability.
The thing is that the thing about the biomarkers is still not clear, because there are several, but then there is also the possibility that these biomarkers arise from geological reactions, they are under debate, I think they will end up making a good list, a good recipe of biomarkers and they will refine that type of detection, but the point is that, in this specific case, what Games Webb detected is precisely the opposite, it did not detect an atmosphere, which is a bit strange because it is a large planet.
Large planets tend to retain their gases, it sounds a bit ugly, but planets generate gases from the interior due to volcanic activity or many circumstances and since they have sufficient gravity it is easy for them to retain those gases, for example, Mars, the problem it has is that it is a small planet and must always have been at the limit in terms of its ability to retain gases, we know that it had water at its time billions of years ago and that it also had a dense atmosphere, but it must have been quite tight.
The exoplanet in question is TRAPPIST-1d, it is 40 light years away from us, it is the size of the Earth, it is in the habitable zone of its system and the James Webb focused to try to detect the atmosphere and see what type of composition it has, but there was no way, the scientists have several theories, one is that it does have it, but it is very faint, similar to that of Mars, similar to that of Mars, the James Webb could not detect it, but it would still be a bad one. news for the planet, since with that atmospheric density it could not retain water on the surface.
Another curious possibility is that it could have very dense clouds at high altitude and then the James Webb could not detect it either, because the James Webb detects the atmosphere of an exoplanet thanks to the light of the star that passes through the atmosphere, for the James Webb it would see the black disk of the planet and then surrounding the planet with a thin halo that would be that atmosphere illuminated by the light of the star and that is what the James Web detects, but if that planet has very dense clouds at high altitude, the light of the star cannot pass through those dense clouds and therefore the James Webb cannot identify whether or not it has an atmosphere, that, for example, is what would happen if the James Web were on another star and tried to look at Venus.
Venus has very dense clouds that prevent sunlight from passing through those clouds and therefore the James Web could not detect or know if Venus has an atmosphere or not, it would also be bad news because if it has that type of atmosphere and in the location in which it is located it would also mean that it would retain a lot of the heat it receives from its star and it would surely be a hot hell like Venus.
And the last option is that it really does not have any atmosphere and is just a sterile rock like Mercury, but it would be strange for a large planet with more surface gravity than Mercury has, these are the three options that are being considered that this exoplanet presents itself.
We have to analyze planet by planet and see what happens in each one of them, perhaps it is not as easy to have an atmosphere like the one that the Earth has, neither too dense to accumulate heat as happens on Venus, nor too weak as Mars has, which prevents water from existing on the surface, from rain and from happening what has to happen for life to develop.
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