From black holes to the search for life, scientific breakthroughs are on the horizon.
Starting from the smaller scale, future astronomical facilities will finally — hopefully — bring about the first detection of life on another planet in the coming years.
astronomers are searching for planets around other stars that host conditions in which life can likely thrive, and simultaneously figuring out how to"recognize whether an extrasolar planet can orsupport life," Victoria Meadows, an astrobiologist at the University of Washington, said at the conference.
Recognizing life and understanding a planet's conditions are really complicated tasks, though. Not only do we need to look for the actual signs of life, known as biosignatures, but we also need to understand the context in which we spot those signs — the planet's environment, even including the behavior of the star it orbits. Excitingly,"JWST and ground-based telescopes will be able to start the search for life, like, right now," Meadows said.
Behemoth observatories here on Earth also promise new insights into the search for life. A new class of observatories known as"Extremely Large Telescopes" or ELTs are under construction in Hawaii and Chile. These mammoth projects will have mirrors around 98 feet in diameter, which is two times as tall as the Hollywood sign and almost three times larger than any other optical telescope in existence.
Although JWST, the HWO and other space-based observatories are powerful tools, they come with hefty price tags, so astronomers will rely on complementary ground-based telescopes like they always have — however, now those ground-based telescopes will be much more powerful.
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