The Webb Telescope can be seen up close and far. In its first year, it will spend about 7% of its time observing our solar system, according to Heidi P. Hamill, a multidisciplinary scientist who worked on developing the telescope. Webb can analyze the atmospheres of nearby planets such as Jupiter and Mars using infrared sensors. These capabilities could also be directed at some of the closest Earth-sized exoplanets, such as those surrounding the small star Trappist-1, which is 40 light-years away.
One goal of this focus is to characterize the biosignature, that is, to indicate that life exists (or has been) in these worlds. On Earth, a biosignature could be the discarded shell of a clam, a fallen feather of a bird, and a petrified fern submerged in sedimentary rocks. On an exoplanet, a certain proportion of gases — oxygen, methane, H₂O, and CO₂, for example — could indicate the presence of microbes or plants. Nicole Lewis, an associate professor of astronomy at Cornell University whose team approved 22.5 hours of web-watching this year to observe Trappist-1e, one of the seven planets surrounding the star Trappist-1, told me long before the discovery was announced. A vital imprint, he has to carefully determine the atmosphere and habitability of the planet. “We first have to see if there’s air, and then we can ask, ‘Well, what’s in the air,'” she says. She estimates that it will take three or more years of system monitoring to be able to say a biosignature exists.
Biometric and technical signatures point in the same direction: towards life. But for now, they are pursued by two separate scientific communities. One reason is historic: The study of biometrics — which began in the 1960s, within a new discipline of exobiology — has been supported by NASA and academic institutions for decades. But the “technical footprint” was only recently invented, in 2007, by Jill Tarter, a leading figure in astronomy who has spent her career researching extraterrestrial transmissions. Jason Wright, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State and a member of Frank’s CATS group, says he views Tarter’s idea as a “reframing” of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, which has long been neglected scientifically. “When Jill coined the phrase, she was trying to suggest that NASA was looking for sticky, airborne microbes and biosignatures, but the technical fingerprints were really under the same umbrella,” Wright told me. Wright argues that any search for biometric fingerprints on a distant planet would logically overlap with the search for technical fingerprints, once it was time to explain the unusual sightings. Does telescopic reading suggest a lively atmosphere? Or is it perhaps also a sign of technology? In other words, scientists looking for biometrics may also encounter technical signs.
So Wright, Frank, and the rest of the CATS team are interested in atmospheric signs that probably don’t exist naturally at all. A recent group article, for example, written primarily by Jacob Haq-Misra, a CATS Fellow at the nonprofit Blue Marble Institute for Space Science, looks at how chlorofluorocarbons, an industrial byproduct, give off a distinct spectral signal that can be captured by Webb . Haq Massara was also the first author of a recent article suggesting that an exoplanet with agriculture – “exofarms” – could emit alarming emissions of air. Another article, written primarily by Ravi Coparabo, a CATS member who works at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, claims that the emission of nitrogen dioxide, an industrial byproduct, could indicate the presence of extraterrestrial technology. These emissions can be observed by NASA’s space telescope, known as LUVOIR (Large Ultraviolet Optical Infrared Surveyor), which is expected to be deployed after 2040. These scenarios – aliens running factories, for example, or objects Astronauts drive tractors at harvest time — it may seem unlikely, but scientists working on tech signatures are comfortable with the low odds. “If we’re focusing on what can be discovered, based on these tools that we’re building, that’s really the key question,” Haque Misra told me.
Learn more about the James Webb Space Telescope
After traveling nearly a million miles to get somewhere beyond the Moon, the James Webb Space Telescope will spend years observing the universe.
When I visited Wright at his office in Pennsylvania in the spring, he argued that technical signatures are not only more detectable than biometrics, perhaps, but also more abundant and more permanent. He said let’s look at the earth as an example. Its technology already extends to the entire solar system. We have trash on the moon. Our rovers are cruising around Mars; We have satellites orbiting other planets. In addition, several spacecraft — including two astronauts, two Voyagers and the New Horizons Pluto probe, all launched by NASA — are venturing beyond the confines of the solar system into interstellar space. Such technical footprints can last for billions of years. We are only 65 years away from the era of space exploration. An ancient civilization could seed the galaxy with thousands of technical fingerprints, which could make it easier to spot them.
“Look, I really don’t know if there’s anything I can find,” Wright said. In 1961, he said, astronomer Frank Drake introduced what is now known as the Drake equation, which consists of many variables and attempts to help calculate the number of intelligent civilizations elsewhere in the galaxy. But with so little data to enter into the variables, there is no solution to the equation yet.
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