James Webb Space Telescope

Scientists have uncovered a new technique for detecting Earth-like alien worlds — and signs of potential alien life — with astronomy’s newest tool: the James Webb Space Telescope.

In a new paper detailed in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and available online on the academic preprint server Arxiv, astronomers from multiple institutions show how the Webb telescope could detect the heat signatures of exoplanets around white dwarfstars by analyzing the light of those stars, and never detecting the planets directly.

Going further, they show Webb could detect signatures of potential alien life, such as large quantities of oxygen and methane appearing together, in the spectral information of an exoplanet’s light.

If applied, the new technique could allow astronomers to detect habitable, and possibly inhabited exoplanets within about 32 light years of Earth.

“The catch is that we don't know of any terrestrial exoplanets orbiting white dwarfs,” Mary Anne Limbach, a PhD student in astronomy at Texas A & M University and lead author of the paper told The Independent in an interview.

Astronomers will first need to use the new technique “to detect white dwarf exoplanets, and then, if we find any, we can perform longer follow-up observations to look for biosignatures.”……

https://www.independent.co.uk/space/webb-exoplanets-white-dwarfs-b2200569.html