James Webb Space Telescope - Interstellar Journey in Search of Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
James Webb Space Telescope - Interstellar Journey in Search of Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
The James Webb Space Telescope is a space telescope developed by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. It is destined to succeed the Hubble Space Telescope as NASA's flagship mission in astrophysics. JWST was launched on December 25, 2021 on an Ariane 5 VA256 rocket. It is designed to provide an improved infrared resolution and sensitivity to Hubble and will allow for a wide range of astronomy and cosmology investigations, including observations of some of the most distant events and objects in the universe, such as the formation of early galaxies. It allows the detailed atmospheric characterization of potentially habitable exoplanets.
The James Webb Space Telescope has four key objectives:
• to look for light from the first stars and galaxies that formed in the Universe after the Big Bang
• study the formation and evolution of galaxies
• understand the formation of stars and planetary systems
• to study the planetary systems and the origin of life.
• to study extraterrestrial life and intelligence.
James Webb will go "to the end of darkness" to discover how the oldest galaxies in the universe formed.
"He will look through a keyhole in the sky. It will look back more than 13 billion years to capture infrared light from the formation of the first galaxy, about 250 million years after the Big Bang, which took place 13 and a half billion years ago, "said the head of NASA.
We will find aliens more easily if we look for those who are already looking for us. We've been looking for intelligent forms of extraterrestrial life for 50 years, but we haven't found anything. It's time for a new approach.
Two astrophysicists have proposed a new strategy for finding intelligent extraterrestrial life: we should point the James Webb telescope in the direction that, if there is intelligent life, there is a good chance that it has already found us.
The extraterrestrial life search program has been around since the 1960's, but researchers are currently planning to launch another, larger and better-funded program called The Breakthrough Initiative. It is an initiative promoted by Stephen Hawking and funded by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, which will use radio telescopes on Earth to "listen" to the signals transmitted by intelligent forms of extraterrestrial life in the Universe.
If we can't find evidence, we're going to start assuming the aliens aren't there.
Of course, when it comes to the search for extraterrestrial life, there is always a problem: the Fermi paradox. This is a contradiction between the number of planets we estimate to have extraterrestrial life and the fact that so far we have not been able to find life on other planets. Heller says the Fermi paradox is very important, but that there are more explanations for our failure to contact extraterrestrial life.
"Aliens may be advanced, even very advanced, but not yet capable of interstellar travel. Or maybe there is absolutely no alien race capable of such travel, "Heller told me.
The most promising scheme for finding extraterrestrial intelligence is the search for electromagnetic signals, especially radio or light, that can be transmitted to Earth from other worlds, either inadvertently (in the same way that Earth broadcasts television and radar signals in space) or as a deliberate beacon signal. The law of physics implies that interstellar travel requires enormous amounts of energy or long travel times. Sending signals, on the other hand, requires only a modest expenditure of energy, and messages move at the speed of light.
If an extraterrestrial civilization came to Earth millions of years ago (the Earth is estimated to be 4.5 billion years old), there may be no signs of their visit, say the study's authors. Researchers are referring here to some previous research that suggests that we may not be able to detect evidence of such extraterrestrial visits.