We live in an infinite Universe, with infinite stars and planets. And it’s been obvious to many of us that we can’t be the only intelligent life out there,” says Prof Catherine Heymans, Scotland’s Astronomer Royal.
We now have the technology and the capability to answer the question of whether we are alone in the cosmos.”
Habitable zones
Telescopes can now analyse the atmospheres of planets orbiting distant stars, looking for chemicals that – on Earth at least – can be produced only by living organisms.
The first flicker of such a discovery came earlier this month. The possible sign of a gas that, on Earth, is produced by simple marine organisms was detected in the atmosphere of a planet named K2-18b, which is 120 light years away
planet is in what astronomers call ”the Goldilocks zone’ – the right distance away from its star for the surface temperature to be neither too hot nor too cold, but just right for there to be liquid water, which is essential to support life
powerful as Nasa’s JWST is, it has its limits. Earth’s size and proximity to the Sun enable it to support life. But JWST wouldn’t be able to detect faraway planets as small as Earth (K2-18b is eight times bigger) or as close to their parent stars, because of the glare.
So, Nasa is planning the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), scheduled for the 2030s. Using what is effectively a high-tech sunshield, it minimises light from the star which a planet orbits. That means it will be able to spot and sample the atmospheres of planets similar to our own.
Searching close to our home
While some look to distant planets, others are restricting their search to our own backyard, to the planets of our own Solar System.
The most likely home for life is one of the icy moons of Jupiter, Europa. It is a beautiful world with cracks on its surface that look like tiger stripes. Europa has an ocean below its icy surface, from which plumes of water vapour spew out into space.
Could aliens be trying to contact us
Some scientists consider this question the realm of science fiction and a long shot, but the search for radio signals from alien worlds has gone on for decades, not least by the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (Seti) institute.
All of space is a large place to look, so their searches have been random to date. But the ability of telescopes, such as JWST, to identify the most likely places for alien civilisations to exist means that Seti can focus its search.
Looking for a signal “might seem the most far-fetched of all the various approaches to find signs of life. But it would also be the most unambiguous and it could happen at any time
If we find signs of life, it will be a revolution in science and it is also going to be a massive change in the way humanity looks at itself and its place in the Universe.”
Light will be the key to find life
Light will be the key – light from the atmospheres of exoplanets, split up into a rainbow spectrum that we can read like a bar code. This method, called transit spectroscopy, would provide a menu of gases and chemicals in the skies of these worlds, including those linked to life
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Universe discoveries 