Speaker 1: Welcome to Bedtime Astronomy. Explore the wonders of the cosmos
Speaker 1: with our soothing Bedtime Astronomie podcast. Each episode offers a
Speaker 1: gentle journey through the stars, planets, and beyond, perfect for
Speaker 1: unwinding after a long day. Let's travel through the mysteries
Speaker 1: of the universe as you drift off into a peaceful
Speaker 1: slumber under the night sky.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's unpack this.
Speaker 3: Imagine looking up at the night sky and pointing to
Speaker 3: a tiny, distant speck forty light years away and asking,
Speaker 3: could there be liquid water? There? Could there be an atmosphere?
Speaker 3: That's exactly the cosmic adventure we're embarking on today. We're
Speaker 3: diving deep into the mystery surrounding an Earth sized exoplanet
Speaker 3: that's been captivating scientists and stargazers alike. Our star for
Speaker 3: this deep dive is trappist One, a world that scientists
Speaker 3: sometimes just call a planet e. Our mission today is
Speaker 3: to explore the central enigma of this fascinating world, the
Speaker 3: potential for liquid water and the absolutely creal role of
Speaker 3: an atmosphere in making that possibility a reality and helping
Speaker 3: us unravel this cosmic puzzle, of course, is the incredible
Speaker 3: eye in the sky NASA's James Webb Space Telescope for you.
Speaker 3: This deep dive is a shortcut to understanding cutting edge astrophysics,
Speaker 3: revealing surprising facts, and hopefully giving you those aha moments
Speaker 3: about world far far beyond our own.
Speaker 4: And what's really fascinating here is that this isn't just
Speaker 4: about you know, spotting a distant spec It's about meticulously
Speaker 4: piecing together the precise conditions that could support liquid water,
Speaker 4: that most fundamentally ingredient for life as we know it. So, yeah,
Speaker 4: we're going to explore how scientists are using the most
Speaker 4: powerful telescope ever built to try and detect these all
Speaker 4: these faint whispers of an atmosphere and what those whispers
Speaker 4: or maybe their absence might tell us about this really
Speaker 4: intriguing world. This journey into Trappist One is it's a
Speaker 4: prime example of how science actually works. You know, you
Speaker 4: have initial theories, then groundbreaking observations and new data, constantly
Speaker 4: refining our understanding. It moves closer to answers off in
Speaker 4: a very collaborative way, and it really challenges us to
Speaker 4: reconsider what we think we know about potentially habitable environments.
Speaker 3: So what exactly is this enigmatic planet E that has
Speaker 3: scientists so incredibly excited.
Speaker 2: Let's start there.
Speaker 4: You know, when we talk about exoplanets, often we're dealing
Speaker 4: with worlds that are just just barely detectable, think blips
Speaker 4: in the data. But trapp Is One, well, it's an
Speaker 4: Earth size exoplanet orbiting a star forty light years away.
Speaker 4: Now forty light years sounds enormous, and it is something
Speaker 4: like two hundred and thirty five trillion miles, but in
Speaker 4: cosmic terms, that's practically our next door neighbor. This relative
Speaker 4: proximity is exactly what makes it such a prime candidate
Speaker 4: for the kind of detailed observation we're going to talk about.
Speaker 3: Right, it's close enough to get a good look, relatively speaking,
Speaker 3: And it's not just its closeness, is it. The whole
Speaker 3: system it's in is pretty special.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, Planet E isn't alone out there. It's one of
Speaker 4: seven Earth sized planets all packed quite tightly around a
Speaker 4: star called trapp Is One. Now trapp Is One isn't
Speaker 4: like our sun at all. What we call a red
Speaker 4: dwarf star, much smaller, much cooler, and dimmer than our
Speaker 4: familiar yellow dwarf sun. Think about a star that's maybe
Speaker 4: only about eight percent the mass of our Sun, barely
Speaker 4: larger than the planet Jupiter. Wow, that's yeah, really small
Speaker 4: for a star. And this means its habitable zone. You
Speaker 4: know that Goldilocks region where liquid water can theoretically exist
Speaker 4: on a planet's surface. Yeah, it's much much closer to
Speaker 4: the star than Earth's orbit is around our Sun.
Speaker 3: So Planet EE must be orbiting incredibly close to Trappis
Speaker 3: one to be in that zone. Does that mean it
Speaker 3: gets baked.
Speaker 4: Or that's the interesting part. It is incredibly close. Planet
Speaker 4: E whips around its star in just six point one
Speaker 4: earth days.
Speaker 2: That's its year, six days, six days.
Speaker 4: Compare that to our three sixty five. But because Trappis
Speaker 4: one is so much cooler, so much dimmer than our sun,
Speaker 4: Plant E actually receives a similar amount of stellar energy
Speaker 4: to Earth. So this puts it squarely within that critical
Speaker 4: habitable zone. Temperatures are theoretically just right for liquid water,
Speaker 4: not so hot it boils away, and not so cold
Speaker 4: it's permanently frozen solid.
Speaker 5: And it's this initial draw the potential for liquid water,
Speaker 5: combined with its Earth like size, that immediately made Trappis
Speaker 5: one a top tier target for well for astrobiology research.
Speaker 3: Okay, so it ticks the big boxes, Earth sized in
Speaker 3: the habitable zone. That sounds like the perfect recipe. But
Speaker 3: you keep saying theoretical viability. What's the catch, what's the
Speaker 3: big uncertainty?
Speaker 5: You've nailed it.
Speaker 4: That's the absolutely critical point and a common misconception when
Speaker 4: people hear habitable zone. While Trappist one m really does
Speaker 4: stand out its size, its position, the presence of liquid
Speaker 4: water isn't guaranteed at all, not by a long shot.
Speaker 4: It hinges entirely on one huge, still unanswered question, does
Speaker 4: planet actually have an atmosphere?
Speaker 3: Ah?
Speaker 2: Right, the at.
Speaker 5: Without an atmosphere, even in that sweet spot orbit, a
Speaker 5: planet's surface conditions could be completely hostile. You'd get wild
Speaker 5: temperature swings between the side facing the star and the
Speaker 5: side facing away. Any surface water could just boil off
Speaker 5: or freeze, or even subtle meate turns straight from mice
Speaker 5: to gas and just get lost to space over time.
Speaker 5: And this brings us right to the big mystery that
Speaker 5: the astrophysicists at the University of Bristol and a large
Speaker 5: international team are working so hard to solve. What this
Speaker 5: really highlights for you the listener is that finding a
Speaker 5: truly habitable world isn't just about location, location, location, It's
Speaker 5: not just the orbital address. It's about understanding the atmosphere,
Speaker 5: the planet's climate system. Really does it have one, what's
Speaker 5: it made of? How does it act as a thermostat
Speaker 5: and maybe a shield? That's what dictates if liquid water
Speaker 5: can actually stick around. It's a delicate balance, and Planet
Speaker 5: E is this fascinating test case that's really pushing our understanding.
Speaker 3: It's truly astonishing that we can even try to detect
Speaker 3: an atmosphere on a planet forty light years away. I mean,
Speaker 3: how on Earth, or rather how off Earth does a
Speaker 3: telescope like JWSTEAM manage that sifting through all that starlight?
Speaker 2: What's the biggest challenge there?
Speaker 5: It is an incredible feed, and you're right, the challenges
Speaker 5: are immense. Think about it.
Speaker 4: We're essentially trying to find the tiny chemical signature of
Speaker 4: a planet's air, a world completely dwarfed by its star
Speaker 4: from trillions of miles away. This is where NASA's James
Speaker 4: Webspace Telescope, the JWST comes in. It's not just another telescope.
Speaker 4: It's genuinely changing the game in exoplanet research. It's part
Speaker 4: of a major international collaboration too. You can think of
Speaker 4: it as humanity's most sensitive eye, specifically tuned to see
Speaker 4: in the infrared to see what was previously hidden from us.
Speaker 3: And it uses a specific instrument for this job, doesn't
Speaker 3: it the ni RESPEC exactly.
Speaker 4: Scientists are using one of JWST's workhorse instruments, ni I RESPEC,
Speaker 4: the Near Infrared spectrographs NOW in I respect, isn't just
Speaker 4: splitting light like a simple prism. It's incredibly sensitive and
Speaker 4: specifically designed for the near infrared part of the spectrum,
Speaker 4: and that's crucial because that's the wavelength range where molecules
Speaker 4: we care about, like water, vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, leave
Speaker 4: their most distinct chemical fingerprints.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, and it's especially.
Speaker 4: Vital for looking at planets around cool red dwarf stars
Speaker 4: like trap Is to one, because these stars emit most
Speaker 4: of their life in the infrared, so it means any
Speaker 4: faint atmospheric signals are relatively speaking easier for JAST to
Speaker 4: read against the star's background infrared light compared to trying
Speaker 4: to see them invisible light, where a star like our
Speaker 4: sun shines brightest. It's like having special glasses that filter
Speaker 4: out everything except the exact chemical signatures you're looking for
Speaker 4: cuts through the noise.
Speaker 3: So how do they actually use enerspect to do this?
Speaker 3: They can't just point it at the planet and see clouds,
Speaker 3: can they?
Speaker 4: No, not directly like that. It relies on a really
Speaker 4: clever technique called the transit method. Picture this from our
Speaker 4: viewpoint here on Earth, or rather from JWST's viewpoint in space.
Speaker 4: Planet E occasionally passes directly in front of its host star,
Speaker 4: Trappist One. This is called a transit. As it does,
Speaker 4: it blocks a tiny, tiny fraction of the star's light,
Speaker 4: causing a very slight dip in the star's overall brightness.
Speaker 4: That's actually how we often find these exoplanets in.
Speaker 5: The first place.
Speaker 2: Okay, I've heard of that, the dip in's starlight, right.
Speaker 4: But here's a really ingenious part for studying atmospheres. Just
Speaker 4: as the planet starts to cross or finishes crossing, some
Speaker 4: of the starlight grazes the edge of the planet. If
Speaker 4: the planet has an atmosphere, that starlight passes through the
Speaker 4: upper layers of that atmosphere on its way to us.
Speaker 3: Ah.
Speaker 2: Okay, the starlight gets.
Speaker 5: Filtered, exactly filtered. The chemicals present in.
Speaker 4: That atmosphere, if one exists, will absorb very specific wavelengths,
Speaker 4: specific colors of that starlight. Every molecule like water or
Speaker 4: CO two, has a unique absorption pattern, like a fingerprint
Speaker 4: or barcode in the infrared spectrum. So by carefully analyzing
Speaker 4: the starlight during these transits, using narspect to spread the
Speaker 4: light into its full spectrum, astronomers can look for these
Speaker 4: characteristic dips missing wavelengths within the starlight. Those dips tell
Speaker 4: them precisely what chemicals are present in the planet's atmosphere.
Speaker 4: It's incredibly precise. Work needs super stable instruments and long
Speaker 4: observation times, and with each additional transit they observe. Each
Speaker 4: time Planet E passes in front of the star and
Speaker 4: JWST gathers more light, the signal gets stronger. The atmosphere
Speaker 4: of contents, or indeed the lack of them, become clearer
Speaker 4: and clearer. It's like building up a picture transit by transit,
Speaker 4: adding more data points to map out what might be
Speaker 4: a truly alien sky.
Speaker 2: That's absolutely incredible.
Speaker 3: It really sounds like the JAWST specific infrared capabilities are
Speaker 3: the game changer here.
Speaker 5: They truly are.
Speaker 4: Doctor Hannah Wakeford, who is an associate professor in astrophysics
Speaker 4: at the University of Bristol and a key member of
Speaker 4: this JWST Transitting exoplanet team. She was instrumental in designing
Speaker 4: the actual observational setup for the telescope. That kind of
Speaker 4: meticulous planning is vital to make sure they get the
Speaker 4: best possible data for these extremely delicate measurements. As doctor
Speaker 4: Wayford herself put it, JWST's infrared instruments are providing unprecedented detail,
Speaker 4: helping us understand much more about what determines the planet's
Speaker 4: atmosphere and surface environment and what they're composed of.
Speaker 2: You can really feel the excitement.
Speaker 5: Oh absolutely.
Speaker 4: She also said, it's incredibly exciting to be peeling back
Speaker 4: the curtain on these fascinating other worlds, measuring the details
Speaker 4: of starlight around Earth sized planets to ascertain what it
Speaker 4: might be like if life could be possible.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: As she mentioned, it's this careful process of elimination and
Speaker 4: comparison that's leading to these great new insights really shifting
Speaker 4: our understanding of planetary science. It's just a stunning testament
Speaker 4: to human ingenuity, isn't it our drive to explore? Lets
Speaker 4: us ask and now start to answer questions that we're
Speaker 4: pure science fiction, just a generation to go, this technological
Speaker 4: leap with JWST. It just pushes our cosmic reach further
Speaker 4: than ever before, giving us these tantalizing glimpses into previously
Speaker 4: inaccessible worlds.
Speaker 3: So, after all that incredible BEATA collection, all that painstaking analysis,
Speaker 3: what does it actually mean for planetes potential atmosphere? What
Speaker 3: are the headlines coming out of these first observations the
Speaker 3: big reveals.
Speaker 4: Well, the initial results are now published actually across two
Speaker 4: fevored papers in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. Yeah, well they're fascinating,
Speaker 4: but also, as science often is quite nuanced and cautiously presented,
Speaker 4: they're definitely what they call hints of an atmosphere. That's
Speaker 4: a key.
Speaker 2: Phrase, and it's okay, not a slam dunk yet.
Speaker 4: Not a slam dunk now, to be really precise here,
Speaker 4: as doctor Wakeford explained, the possibility that there's simply nothing there,
Speaker 4: no significant atmosphere at all can't be completely ruled out
Speaker 4: just yet based on this initial data. It's very much
Speaker 4: a careful process of elimination like cosmic detective work unfolding
Speaker 4: as we speak, comparing the data to different models. So
Speaker 4: it's not a definitive yes or no right now, but
Speaker 4: the picture is getting clearer, and crucially, we're starting to
Speaker 4: understand what Planet EA's atmosphere isn't which is often just
Speaker 4: as important in science.
Speaker 2: Okay, so what isn't it?
Speaker 3: What have they managed to definitively rule out with these
Speaker 3: first JWST looks.
Speaker 4: This is actually one of the most definitive findings so far,
Speaker 4: real revelation. The researchers are pretty confident that planet E
Speaker 4: does not have its original primordial atmosphere.
Speaker 2: It's original atmosphere.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is a really crucial piece of the puzzle.
Speaker 4: It immediately crosses off a major possibility and tells us
Speaker 4: something fundamental about the planet's history and its environment. To
Speaker 4: unpack that a bit, we're talking about what's called a
Speaker 4: primordial hideen based atmosphere. This is basically the initial gas
Speaker 4: envelope mostly hydrogen and helium that a planet gathers from
Speaker 4: the disc it forms in. Think of it as the
Speaker 4: leftover gas from the planet's birth cloud. These are thought
Speaker 4: to be pretty common for young planets both gas giants
Speaker 4: and rocky ones like Earth way back in the early
Speaker 4: Solar System.
Speaker 3: So like baby Earth might have had one of these
Speaker 3: fluffy hydrogen atmospheres.
Speaker 4: That's the idea, yes, But for Planet E, the JWST
Speaker 4: data strongly suggests this isn't the case anywhere it's gone.
Speaker 4: Doctor David Grant, who was a senior research associated Bristol
Speaker 4: and a co author, explained why. He pointed out that
Speaker 4: trappist One, the parent star, is a very active star
Speaker 4: with frequent flares. Ah the star itself is the culprit.
Speaker 4: It seems very likely these aren't just gentle flickers. They
Speaker 4: are intense bursts of radiation, powerful stellar winds, high energy
Speaker 4: particles blasting out from the star over billions of years.
Speaker 4: This constant barrage, especially when the planet was young, would
Speaker 4: have acted like a cosmic sand blaster.
Speaker 5: It would have just.
Speaker 4: Stripped off by stellar radiation. Any light easily removed gases
Speaker 4: like hydrogen and helium, so that initial primordial atmosphere, if
Speaker 4: it ever had one, would likely have been blown away
Speaker 4: into space relatively early in the planet's history. It's a
Speaker 4: harsh place to grow up orbardly.
Speaker 3: Speaking, right, that makes sense A very active star would
Speaker 3: make it hard to hold onto light gases. So if
Speaker 3: it doesn't have its primordial atmosphere, does that just mean
Speaker 3: it's a barren rock now or is there another possibility?
Speaker 4: And this is where it gets really interesting and hopeful.
Speaker 4: This leads us directly to the concept of a secondary atmosphere.
Speaker 4: Doctor Wakeford pointed this out specifically. She noted many planets,
Speaker 4: including Earth, build up a heavier secondary atmosphere after losing
Speaker 4: their primary atmosphere.
Speaker 2: Like Earth did.
Speaker 4: Exactly like Earth did, our early hydrogen helium atmosphere was
Speaker 4: lost too, but then over millions billions of years, processes
Speaker 4: like volcanic outgasing released heavier gases from the planet's interior,
Speaker 4: things like carbon dioxide, water, vapor, nitrogen, and then, of
Speaker 4: course life eventually reshaped or atmosphere dramatically by adding oxygen.
Speaker 4: The point is planets can generate a new atmosphere from within,
Speaker 4: So this is the current frontier for Planet E. As
Speaker 4: doctor Wakefort put it, it is possible Planet E was
Speaker 4: never able to do this and doesn't have a secondary atmosphere,
Speaker 4: but there's an equal chance one does exist. Ah, so
Speaker 4: the jury is still out, but the possibility is definitely
Speaker 4: there precisely while that initial hydrogen cloak is gone. The
Speaker 4: chance that it generated a new heavier atmosphere, maybe rich
Speaker 4: in CO two, maybe nitrogen, maybe even water vapor released
Speaker 4: from its rocks and magma over time, that remains very
Speaker 4: much an open question. The data doesn't rule it out.
Speaker 4: It really is like that detective analogy, figuring out what's
Speaker 4: not there. The primordial atmosphere is just as important for
Speaker 4: narrowing down the possibilities as finding clues about what might
Speaker 4: be there. And it also really underscores how dynamic these
Speaker 4: stellar environments are, especially around these active red dwarfs. They
Speaker 4: can completely reshape a planet's atmospheric destiny. It's not a
Speaker 4: static picture. It's an ongoing cosmic drama of atmospheric survival.
Speaker 3: Okay, So if Planet E does manage to have that
Speaker 3: secondary atmosphere, that heavier one, what's the next domino to
Speaker 3: fall in this whole cosmic puzzle. Does that automatically mean
Speaker 3: liquid water because that seems to be the holy grail here.
Speaker 4: That's exactly right. The potential for liquid water is the
Speaker 4: next crucial link in the chain. And yes, if a
Speaker 4: secondary atmosphere exists, then liquid water could certainly persist on
Speaker 4: the surface, and if that's the case, researchers are pretty
Speaker 4: confident it would almost certainly require and be accompanied by
Speaker 4: a greenhouse effect, something basically similar in principle to what
Speaker 4: happens here on Earth.
Speaker 2: The greenhouse effect keeping it warm enough.
Speaker 4: Exactly certain gases in that atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is a
Speaker 4: prime candidate, but maybe methane or water vapor too, would
Speaker 4: trap some of the heat radiating for the planet's surface,
Speaker 4: heat that originally came from the star. This trapped heat
Speaker 4: keeps the planet warmer than it would be otherwise, and
Speaker 4: critically it helps stabilize the temperature, ending all the water
Speaker 4: from just freezing solid or boiling away instantly. Without a
Speaker 4: reasonably significant greenhouse effect, even with an atmosphere, the average
Speaker 4: surface temperature might just be too low for liquid water,
Speaker 4: or you'd get such extreme temperature swings between the day
Speaker 4: and night sides that water couldn't remain liquid reliably.
Speaker 3: Now, when we hear a greenhouse effect, a lot of
Speaker 3: us immediately picture Venus right with that incredibly thick runaway
Speaker 3: carbon dioxide atmosphere and surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead.
Speaker 2: Is that the kind of scenario we might be looking
Speaker 2: at for Planet E.
Speaker 4: That's a really important question, and it's vital we add
Speaker 4: some nuance there. The lead author on the theoretical interpretation paper,
Speaker 4: doctor Anna Glidden from MIT, specifically addressed this. She explained
Speaker 4: that based on their modeling and the current data, it
Speaker 4: is unlikely the atmosphere of planet E is dominated by
Speaker 4: carbon dioxide like the thick atmosphere of Venus and the
Speaker 4: thin atmosphere of Mars.
Speaker 2: Okay, so not like Venus, whew, and not like Mars either.
Speaker 4: Apparently not dominated by CO two in the way either
Speaker 4: of those are, which suggests something potentially different. Doctor Glidden
Speaker 4: also emphasized, but it's also important to note there are
Speaker 4: no direct parallels with our solar system. Trappist One is
Speaker 4: a very different star from our Sun, and the planetary
Speaker 4: system around it is also distinct. That's a really key takeaway.
Speaker 4: We're dealing with an alien solar system, an alien star.
Speaker 4: We shouldn't expect things to look exactly like Earth, Venus
Speaker 4: or Mars. The conditions, the history, the chemistry could all
Speaker 4: be unique.
Speaker 3: Okay, so maybe not Venus like, maybe not Mars like,
Speaker 3: but some CO two could still be really important, couldn't
Speaker 3: it for that warming effect?
Speaker 4: Precisely, even if CO two isn't the main component, it
Speaker 4: could still play that crucial greenhouse role. And doctor Wakeford
Speaker 4: added a very encouraging detail on this point. She said,
Speaker 4: a little greenhouse effect can go a long way. And
Speaker 4: the new measurements do not rule out sufficient carbon dioxide
Speaker 4: to sustain some liquid water on the surface.
Speaker 2: Ah not ruled out. That sounds significant.
Speaker 4: It is significant in scientific terms. It means the observations
Speaker 4: we have so far are still perfectly consistent, whether it
Speaker 4: being enough CO two or perhaps other greenhouse gases to
Speaker 4: keep the surface temperature above freezing at least in some places.
Speaker 4: It means the possibility of liquid water enabled by a
Speaker 4: modest greenhouse effect remains firmly on the table based on
Speaker 4: this initial JWST data. That's a major step forward. Now,
Speaker 4: let's just imagine for a second what that liquid water
Speaker 4: might actually look like on such a well, such a
Speaker 4: unique world. Because it might not be a global ocean
Speaker 4: like Earth's, the water could potentially take one of two
Speaker 4: main forms. Maybe it is a global ocean covering most
Speaker 4: of the planet, a true water world, or and this
Speaker 4: is where the unique environment that the system really comes
Speaker 4: into play, the water might only cover a smaller specific area,
Speaker 4: perhaps a region where the star is at perpetual noon
Speaker 4: surrounded by ice.
Speaker 2: Perpetual noon surrounded by ice.
Speaker 3: That sounds incredibly bizarre, like an eyeball staring at the star.
Speaker 2: I think I've heard that term eyeball planet.
Speaker 4: That's exactly the concept the eyeball, or sometimes lava lamp
Speaker 4: ocean configuration, and as a direct consequence of something called
Speaker 4: tidal locking.
Speaker 2: Tidal locking like our moon.
Speaker 4: Decisely like our moon because the trapis one planets are
Speaker 4: relatively large compared to their small star, and because the
Speaker 4: orbits so incredibly close, the star's gravity has locked their rotation.
Speaker 4: What this means is that one side of Planet E
Speaker 4: always faces the star, experiencing perpetual daylight, while the other
Speaker 4: side is permanently turned away, plunged into perpetual darkness and cold.
Speaker 3: Wow, a permanent day side and a permanent night side.
Speaker 4: Exactly Unlike Earth, which rotates, distributing heat more evenly, Planet
Speaker 4: E would have this stark contrast. So if liquid water exists,
Speaker 4: the most likely place for it to pool and persist
Speaker 4: would be on that permanently warm day side. Maybe concentrated
Speaker 4: near the point directly facing the star, the substellar point.
Speaker 4: This could form that eyeball ocean, a large patch of
Speaker 4: liquid water facing the star, potentially surrounded by glaciers, or
Speaker 4: a vast frozen ice sheet covering the twilight zones and
Speaker 4: the entire dark side.
Speaker 3: That paints such a drastically alien picture, not Earth two
Speaker 3: point zero, but something entirely different. What would the conditions
Speaker 3: even be like near that ocean?
Speaker 4: Oh, incredibly dramatic. Most likely imagine constant, perhaps hurricane force
Speaker 4: winds blowing from the hottest point under the star towards
Speaker 4: the colder twilight regions and the night side. Driven by
Speaker 4: that massive temperature difference. These winds would likely drive strong
Speaker 4: ocean currents. Within that eyeball sea. You might have intensive
Speaker 4: operation under the star, leading to thick clouds, maybe perpetual
Speaker 4: rain or snow in the transition zones. The terminator line,
Speaker 4: that ring of perpetual twilight between the day and night
Speaker 4: sides could be a really interesting zone. Maybe temperatures there
Speaker 4: are more stable, more clement.
Speaker 3: It really forces you to think outside the box about
Speaker 3: what habitable even means, doesn't it.
Speaker 4: It absolutely does? How would life adapt could something live
Speaker 4: in the boiling center or the freezing edges, or find
Speaker 4: a niche in that twilight zone. Maybe life exists under
Speaker 4: the ice on the dark side, warmed by geothermal heat.
Speaker 4: The fact that these initial Jawst findings are still consistent
Speaker 4: with enough greenhouse gases to make any surface liquid water
Speaker 4: are possible even in this strange eyeball configuration is what
Speaker 4: keeps scientists so incredibly engaged. It challenges all our earth
Speaker 4: centric biases about what a habitable world must look like.
Speaker 4: It really broadens our perspective on the sheer variety of
Speaker 4: potentially life bearing environments the universe might offer.
Speaker 3: This really does feel like just the beginning, doesn't it.
Speaker 3: This deep dive into Trappis one m is clearly far
Speaker 3: from over. These initial findings, these hints are just paving
Speaker 3: the way for more. It feels like we found the
Speaker 3: first few pieces of this incredibly complex and captivating cosmic puzzle.
Speaker 3: But maybe those pieces just raise even more questions. So
Speaker 3: what's next? What's on the cosmic research agenda for Planet E?
Speaker 4: You're absolutely right, this is very much just the first chapter.
Speaker 4: The quest to understand Planet E is an ongoing process.
Speaker 4: The immediate next steps involved well more data, more observations
Speaker 4: they need to build on these initial four transit observations.
Speaker 4: The more times they can watch planet ePass in front
Speaker 4: of trap this one, the more starlight they collect passing
Speaker 4: through its potential atmosphere. This will strain than the signal
Speaker 4: or perhaps show its absence more clearly. It will allow
Speaker 4: scientists to confirm or deny the presence of that secondary
Speaker 4: atmosphere with much greater confidence and hopefully start to really
Speaker 4: pin down its composition what is it made of? But crucially,
Speaker 4: it's not just about staring at Planet E.
Speaker 5: They will also.
Speaker 4: Compare its data very closely with data from another planet
Speaker 4: in the same system, Trappist one B.
Speaker 2: Planet B, the one even closer to the star.
Speaker 4: That's the one Planet B orbits closest to the star,
Speaker 4: so it gets blasted with even more intense radiation. It's
Speaker 4: likely lost any atmosphere it might have had, even more
Speaker 4: readily than Planet E. By comparing the atmospheric signals or
Speaker 4: lack thereof, from both planet B and Planet E, scientists
Speaker 4: can get a much better handle on the processes of
Speaker 4: atmospheric loss and retention across the whole system. How does
Speaker 4: this star's activity affect planets at different distances. This kind
Speaker 4: of comparative exoplanetology, studying multiple planets in the same system
Speaker 4: is incredibly powerful. It gives context. It will provide really
Speaker 4: nuanced insights, not just a planet E's potential habitability, but
Speaker 4: about how these common red dwarf stars shape the world's
Speaker 4: orbiting them. It's like having multiple experiments running in the
Speaker 4: same cosmic lab.
Speaker 3: That sounds like a truly monumental undertaking. It must involve
Speaker 3: a huge team. Who are the people behind this kind
Speaker 3: of groundbreaking research.
Speaker 4: It really does highlight the scale and the collaborative nature
Speaker 4: of modern astrophysics. Doctor Nestor Espinoza, who's an associate astronomer
Speaker 4: at the Space Telescope Science Institute, the place that operates
Speaker 4: JWST and one of the principal investigators focusing on trappis
Speaker 4: one he emphasized this. He said, web's infrared instruments are
Speaker 4: giving us more detail than we've ever had access to before,
Speaker 4: and the initial four observations we've been able to make
Speaker 4: of planet E are showing us what we will have
Speaker 4: to work with when the rest of the information comes in.
Speaker 4: That clearly indicates this is a planned, long term campaign.
Speaker 4: They knew the first look would be suggestive, maybe not definitive,
Speaker 4: and they're ready to gather the rest of.
Speaker 5: The data needed.
Speaker 2: It's part of a bigger program.
Speaker 3: Isn't it?
Speaker 5: Yes, exactly, The whole problem is part of a larger
Speaker 5: JWST initiative called the Dreams program that stands for trappis
Speaker 5: one m survey team detailed research for exoplanetary atmospheres and
Speaker 5: mass loss studies.
Speaker 4: Quite a mouthful. It's a massive collaborative effort led by
Speaker 4: doctor Nicole Lewis, who's an associate professor over at Cornell University,
Speaker 4: and it's truly international. We're talking more than thirty scientists
Speaker 4: involved from the UK, the US and India, including, as
Speaker 4: you might expect, several current and former members of doctor
Speaker 4: Wakeford's team at Bristol. It really showcases that global effort
Speaker 4: needed to tackle these big questions.
Speaker 3: And this team they have a pretty strong track record
Speaker 3: already with JWST, don't they. I think I remember hearing
Speaker 3: about another big discovery they made.
Speaker 5: You're absolutely right. This group has already made headlines. They
Speaker 5: had that breakthrough detection of quartz clouds made of tiny
Speaker 5: sand like particles in the atmosphere of a different, very
Speaker 5: hot exoplanet that was published back in twenty twenty three
Speaker 5: study led by doctor Grant, the same research we mentioned
Speaker 5: earlier and co authored by doctor Wakeford. So yes, this
Speaker 5: prior success really underscore the caliber of the team and
Speaker 5: again the incredible transformative power of JWST itself. It shows
Speaker 5: they know how to use this instrument to tease out
Speaker 5: really difficult signals. It reinforces that we're not just passively
Speaker 5: looking anymore. We're actively pushing the boundaries of what we
Speaker 5: can detect and understand about these alien atmospheres. And it's
Speaker 5: always worth remembering the bigger picture of JWST itself. It's
Speaker 5: the world's premiere space science observatory right now. Its mission
Speaker 5: is broad distant galaxies star formation probing the universe's mysteries,
Speaker 5: but studying exoplanets is a huge part of that, and
Speaker 5: it's an international program, NASA, the European Space Agency, the
Speaker 5: Canadian Space Agency all working together. The whole Trappist one
Speaker 5: M story is just a fantastic example of this global
Speaker 5: scientific cooperation, constantly pushing the frontiers of discovery and revealing
Speaker 5: bit by bit just how much richer and more complex
Speaker 5: the universe is than we ever imagined. Each new piece
Speaker 5: of data really does bring us a little closer to
Speaker 5: understanding our own place within it all.
Speaker 3: So we've journeyed forty light years in our minds today,
Speaker 3: peered through starlight using the most advanced telescope humanity has
Speaker 3: ever built, and we found these compelling hints, this tantalizing clues,
Speaker 3: clues that an Earth's size exoplanet Trapeze T one might
Speaker 3: just hold on to a secondary atmosphere, and if it
Speaker 3: does well, then the potential for liquid water follows, maybe
Speaker 3: a global ocean, maybe that strange sunkissed eyeballpool on a
Speaker 3: tidally locked world. This isn't just a story about a
Speaker 3: distant planet, is. It feels like a testament to human curiosity,
Speaker 3: to our ingeneviity. It really reminds us that we are
Speaker 3: living in a golden age of cosmic exploration, constantly redefining
Speaker 3: what's possible to find out there. Science fiction is literally
Speaker 3: becoming science fact before our eyes.
Speaker 4: And what's truly fascinating here, I think, is how these discoveries,
Speaker 4: even these tentative hints from worlds like Trappist one, they
Speaker 4: really compel us to rethink our most basic assumptions about
Speaker 4: where life could emerge in what forms it might take.
Speaker 4: If a tidally locked planet orbiting a volatile red dwarf
Speaker 4: star can potentially sustain liquid water, perhaps in a configuration
Speaker 4: totally unlike Earth, well, what other completely unexpected possibilities will
Speaker 4: JWST uncover next out there in the vastness, And ultimately,
Speaker 4: what does that tell us about our own unique or
Speaker 4: perhaps not so unique place in the cosmos. It forces
Speaker 4: us to broaden that definition of habitable in ways we
Speaker 4: probably haven't even conceived of yet. It's a profound question
Speaker 4: to ponder.
Speaker 3: Absolutely our really powerful thought to end on. Thank you
Speaker 3: so much for sharing your expertise on this deep dive today,
Speaker 3: and thank you our listener for joining us. Keep looking up,
Speaker 3: keen asking those big questions, and we'll see you on
Speaker 3: the next cosmic Adventuress.
Speaker 6: Says said
Speaker 2: Yousssssss