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JWST: Identification of carbon dioxide in an exoplanet atmosphere
- mysterydip 4y ago> CO2 is an indicator of the metal enrichment (i.e., elements heavier than helium, also called "metallicity") I'm confused; aren't literally all but one of the elements heavier than helium?
- astrolx 4y agoYes, everything heavier than hydrogen and helium is called metals by astronomers. It's a misleading term for the public, but very widely employed. (I'm an astronomer)
- kzrdude 4y agoSo it's a three-element periodic table: Hydrogen, Helium, Metals. :)
- hermitcrab 4y agoReminds me of numbers for database programmers - 0, 1 and many.
- mpweiher 4y agoYes. And that's giving far too much weight to the Metals ;-) (1% of total mass) The universe really is just Hydrogen + Helium + rounding error...
- kzrdude 4y agoI heard there might be interesting stuff happening with the metals though. They are self-conscious and stuff?
- simonh 4y agoThe jury’s out on that metaphysically speaking, but even if so that’s a rounding error of the rounding error. This handy chart breaking down the universe by subject area is a useful guide. https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2640:_The_Universe_by_Scientific_Field https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2640:_The_Univers...
- dan353hehe 4y agoWait, the metal talks? And it thinks with its metal?
- dekhn 4y agothe metal sings! they can sing by squirting air through their metal!
- cmrdporcupine 4y agoIt's really metal through their metal
- lubujackson 4y agoThey're Made of Meat -> They're Made of Metal: way cooler
- aaaaaaaaaaab 4y agoYes, they are pretty self-conscious. E.g. gold constantly thinks she's looking too yellow.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Eupraxias 4y agoActually, I've heard it called just "Hydrogen and Dirty Hydrogen"
- moffkalast 4y agoThe universe is a zeppelin
- quickthrower2 4y agoNot a led zeppelin though
- ant6n 4y agoBut a metal zeppelin
- quickthrower2 4y agoHydrogen is a metal? You must be a very early universe astrophysicist
- mysterydip 4y agoI would've aced my chemistry class!
- Keyframe 4y agoFour actually. There are also heavy metals
- ithkuil 4y agoHydrogen, helium, light metal, and heavy metal
- GolfPopper 4y agoCan't we just consider the heavy metal noise?
- agentwiggles 4y agoAC/DC published a study in 1980 asserting that rock and roll ain't noise pollution.
- jacquesm 4y agoDoesn't this have to do with the formation of those elements? As in 'anything heavier than helium is a metal because it was formed in the explosion of a first generation star'? Rather than the chemical definition of what a metal is they probably should have used '2nd generation or later elements' but then again, computer programmers call little boxes with wires attached to them 'mice' and nobody bats an eye (and in fact, that use has now become commonplace).
- jagger27 4y agoWith the small exception of a tiny bit of lithium made before star formation, yes.
- jacquesm 4y agoBy what process was that Lithium created?
- astrolx 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_lithium_problem#Lithium_synthesis_in_the_Big_Bang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_lithium_problem#L...
- credit_guy 4y agoOk, completely unrelated, but here's a riddle: how many nuclear reactions are there in a thermonuclear bomb? 1. Fission of the plutonium pit 2. Fusion of a small amount of deuterium-tritium at the center of the plutonium pit (designed to be a source of extra neutrons to boost the yield of the plutonium fission) 3. Fission of Lithium-6. Yep, Lithium can undergo fission when bombarded with neutrons. It can't sustain chain reaction, but it's fission nonetheless. The main idea is to generate Tritium, which goes into the next phase, but the energy generated during the fission of Lithium is nothing to sneeze at. Pound for pound, it generates about as much energy as the plutonium. 4. Fusion of the hydrogen (tritium produced from the previous step, and deuterium that's stored in the form of Lithium Deuteride from the beginning) 5. Fission of a rod of plutonium in the middle of the cylinder containing the hydrogen (fission is returning the favor and boosts the fusion reaction) 6. Fission of the uranium temper. The main point of the uranium temper is to be heavy and contain the nuclear reactions for a tiny bit of time, so more generations of reactions can happen, but the secondary outcome is that some of the U-238 nuclei will undergo fission when bombarded by the neutrons from the inside of the bomb.
- MauranKilom 4y agoGiving rise to this parody of sorts: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2340:_Cosmologist_Genres https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2340:_Cosmologist...
- sgt101 4y agoI would like them to find methane & oxygen in an atmosphere. I don't have a clue really, but I think that would be pretty convincing evidence of life. I expect that they are busy looking and we will get a result like that in the not too distant future - if the JWST can do it and if such atmospheres do exist in substantial numbers.
- wongarsu 4y agoExactly. Detecting CO2 is cool, but it's very stable and found in lots of places. Finding more reactive gases would be more exciting, because that might imply they're being replenished from somewhere, presumably either geological processes or life. And some gasses like oxygen don't really get produced by geological processes.
- teaearlgraycold 4y agoMake it oxygen, methane and water and I’ll happily consider alien life discovered.
- selimthegrim 4y agoThey found water vapor too according to NYT. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/26/science/space/webb-telescope-wasp-exoplanet.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/26/science/space/webb-telesc...
- nickff 4y agoMethane has been detected on Mars, and is not regarded as proof of ‘life’. In addition to bacteriological sources of methane, it can be produced through geochemical processes. I am not sure which, if any atmospheric gasses would be proof-of-life. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_on_Mars https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_on_Mars
- mohaine 4y agoI’m pretty sure lot of gasses would, just not the natural ones. CFCs and many other man made gasses have no viable non-alive natural sources.
- GordonS 4y agoFor anyone else curious, the planet in question is WASP-39b, which is a long way away. From Wikipedia: "WASP-39b is in the Virgo constellation, and is about 700 light-years from Earth"
- maxnoe 4y agoWhile the statement is obviously true, relatively speaking 700 light years is pretty close when it comes to star systems. It's only ~20 times further away than the closest star.
- GordonS 4y agoYes, it's "close" in galactic terms, but in human terms it might as well be 7 million light years away.
- bratbag 4y agoDepends on how our propulsion tech advances. From the local timeframe of people on the ship, a constant 1g of acceleration and then deceleration would get people there in a little under 13 years.
- shiftingleft 4y agoHow much faster than the speed of light are we going here
- DesiLurker 4y agocoolworlds did a video on constant 1G acceleration travel : https://youtu.be/b_TkFhj9mgk https://youtu.be/b_TkFhj9mgk bottomline, you get progressively closer to speed of light and time slows for you so you can cover larger and larger distance in local frame. problem is finding this 1G drive.
- tsimionescu 4y agoNot at all. But those 13 years are from the perspective of the people on the ship (also, from. Their perspective, the distance they travel is much much smaller). From the perspective of people on Earth, the ship arrives on that planet many thousands of years later. Edit: actually, from the perspective of people on Earth, it will roughly arrive 700+1 years later.
- FL33TW00D 4y agoFor everyone imagining an industrial revolution 700 light years away - unfortunately WASP-39b isn't well suited: "WASP-39 b is a hot, puffy gas-giant planet with a mass 0.28 times Jupiter (0.94 times Saturn) and a diameter 1.3 times greater than Jupiter, orbiting just 0.0486 astronomical units (4,500,000 miles) from its star"
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jcims 4y agoIt's diameter is ~112k miles, or roughly 2% of the distance to its star. It's hard to imagine the amount of chaos in that atmosphere. I would think all of the churn from the gravitational gradient would end up effectively tidally locking it?
- anonporridge 4y agoWhy would the presence of CO2 in the atmosphere ever be used to assume an industrial revolution in any scenario? The atmosphere of both Mars and Venus are 95% CO2. Earth had plenty of CO2 before humans even existed. In fact, there were periods hundreds of millions of years ago where Earth had drastically more CO2 (up to 9000ppm vs 420ppm today) than it does today.
- addaon 4y ago