The James Webb Telescope is being used to see if these seven Earth-like planets could be home to extraterrestrial life

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Astronomers will be waiting with held breath to peer at the universe through new eyes when the James Webb Telescope launches into space in around five months. The most fascinating observations will be aimed at determining whether or not we are alone in the cosmos.

The telescope will be pointed at the TRAPPIST-1 system, an unusual planetary system that garnered international headlines five years ago. As the James Webb Telescope begins to observe the universe in the infrared, the system announced by Nasa in 2017 will be a hotbed for research. TRAPPIST-1 is a red dwarf star with a close-knit family of seven Earth-sized planets.

"What kinds of planets could be able to support extraterrestrial life? The James Webb Space Telescope will study at TRAPPIST-1, a system of seven rocky planets orbiting a dim star, to help answer this question "On the anniversary of the extraordinary discovery, Nasa announced. Telescopes on the ground and in space were used to discover the system.

WHERE DOES THE TRAPPIST-1 SYSTEM COME FROM?

The TRAPPIST-1 system, which is only 40 light-years from Earth and has seven rocky exoplanets orbiting the dwarf star, is one of the most researched planetary systems after our own Solar System. Three of these planets are firmly placed in the habitable zone, which is the region surrounding the parent star where a rocky planet is most likely to contain liquid water, according to Nasa.

All seven planets, which are roughly 235 trillion miles away from us, have the potential for water on their surfaces. A thorough examination of the seven planets revealed that some may contain significantly more water than Earth's oceans, in the form of atmospheric water vapour for planets nearest to their star, liquid water for others, and ice for the worlds farthest away.

TRAPPIST-1 planets are likely comprised of comparable materials to Earth, according to a research published in 2021. This could indicate that they all have roughly the same ratio of materials found in most rocky planets, such as iron, oxygen, magnesium, and silicon.

WHAT WILL THE JAMES WEBB TELESCOPE BE SEARCHING FOR?

The James Webb Telescope will search for traces of atmospheres on these planets, with a particular focus on TRAPPIST-1e, the system's fourth planet. It's right in the midst of the habitable zone, often known as the Goldilocks zone, according to Nasa. This is the orbital distance from a star at which the amount of warmth is just right for liquid water to form on a planet's surface.

More information about habitability came from Hubble Space Telescope measurements. While Hubble lacks the ability to establish if the planets have potentially livable atmospheres, it did discover that at least three of them, d, e, and f, do not appear to have the puffy, hydrogen-dominated atmospheres that gas giants have.

"The hope is that we'll find carbon dioxide, which is a really strong feature, just at Webb's wavelengths." We can go back and perform a much higher resolution study in that area once we know where there are little things popping above the noise," Nikole Lewis, a planetary scientist at Cornell University, said in a statement.

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