Your explanations are always so dense and specific, yet clear and understandable . Your joy and amazement make it easy to listen and absorb your videos. Thank you !
Your energy is always appreciated. I don't think anyone else brings so much to the topics while talking about graphs & charts & still making it come alive.
This telescope just blows my mind every time it finds something! So much information in such little time! Imagine what this machine can find in 10 years! 🤯😍
You're (describing) cherrypicking, or at least inadvertently using cherrypicked data as a basis; all the publicized findings _are_ the interesting ones. But I agree with your optimism.
Sadly it might not last that long, its fuel is meant to keep it in the stable orbit for around 5 years. But I'm certain scientists will use as much data from it as they can!
@@cawareyoudoin7379 That's not correct. JWSTs fuel was meant to last for a minimum of 5 years and with good hope for 10 years. It was dependent on how much fuel it would have required to make it to the L2 point. But ESAs Ariane 5 rocket was fired that precisely and that optimal, that JWSTs fuel might even last for more than 20 years! edit: I had to correct L5 to L2 typo...
I volunteered for the TESS planetary hunter project on Zooniverse and sifted through around 2k charts in dec :O. It's addictive and so exciting when you find something no one has seen before! I found the detection of a HUGE dwarf nova (A flash 12000x the stars normal brightness!), it was soo cool to see on the graph (although it had already been catalogued in a previous sector, or by a previous study). Also some Eclipsing binaries or trinary star systems make the coolest patterns :D.
@@DrBecky Thanks to your colleagues for putting together such a cohesive project. Some of the other's I looked at on zooniverse were either really confusingly put together, or just outright didn't function properly. The TESS project is so simple to pick up, and has a wealth of supporting information and a really active team and community. They do great work imho. It's also pretty fun if you don't mind sifting through data charts to find the hidden gems. 👍 You also get your name on the discovery paper released for any new planet you help to identify, the organisers don't take all the credit, and they share the glory with us hobbiests, which I think is a really neat touch. ☺️
How awesome for you to be such an enthusiastic participant in the world's largest and most futile turd hunt. Thanks for sharing the way you waste your time!
Earth-like could also mean Venus-like, and maybe even Mars-like. Hopefully, one of these days, we'll be able to determine what gasses are in their atmosphere.
@@billbyrd5150 There is a possibility, but the equipment would have to be extremely sensitive in order to register what little light is filtered through it's atmosphere.
As someone with 2 doctorates who has also taught and mentored many students over the years, your explanations are so well-thought out and relatable, great for even the lay person, while being detailed enough for the professional. You're also so passionate about the material, and that passion infects the viewer. You must be a great in-person professor. I consider myself an amateur cosmologist, though I'm in the medical field. So glad I stumbled upon your channel!
I hope you realize that humans don't know anything about exoplanets and we never will. Videos claiming to know things about surface conditions on exoplanets are pure fiction.
@moonbeamskies Naturally. There is only so much information you can glean from telescopes at such a distance. Furthermore, given that you're looking into the past, you can't even know that the objects you're viewing even look the same in the present day. And unless we discover a faster than light means of travel, we'll never be able to visit them.
@@moonbeamskies3346 Had to be said, but this is "give me a bigger telescope" week. Next week is "give me a bigger collider" week, "please fund my mutated virus" week probably will not come back for 2 more years and will be in Rio 2025.
@@remander3873 This is only 41 light years away. We're not exactly looking into the deep past with this study and in the lifetime of red dwarf systems a billion years is hardly anything.
@James Sure You could say that about a lot of career choices, honestly. In this case, however, I would argue that studying the universe has the potential to not only tell us about the past but inform us on the present and potential for the future.
Imagine you were at the movie house, but you were not allowed to the cinema hall itself. You could hear loud sounds and dialogues through the walls, you could even peek through a tiny little hole, and you even managed to get some idea what the movies were about. You've been doing like this for years. And now you finally got a seat at the hall. And the show begins. That's how JWST feels like.
My son was at the AAS in Seattle. He was with the Harvard and Smithsonian's CFA. He interned with them last Summer helping to improve the Fits of TESS Objects of Interest with GAIA DR3. He really enjoyed it and is very happy he's chosen Physics and Math as his majors.
From the moment that I saw the observations of the transit were four days apart (5:14) to the moment Dr. Becky said it (7:54) all I could think was, "that planet has to be tidally locked."
Its so exciting we are finally finding stuff like this. At the same time I feel pretty bad for the exoplanet folks that literally require this specific instrument to do said research. I'd imagine the competition is a tad fierce. I guess its nothing too new though, as the big scopes have basically always been oversubscribed.
The accelerating advancements in rocket tech will lead to a significant drop in launch costs. Leading to less complex deployments of space telescopes with greater capabilities. Exciting times for those looking to develop the next generation.
I think another possibility for these planets that are tidally locked is that their atmospheres have frozen out on the cold side. I remember reading a paper a long time ago that went through this possibility and whether the atmosphere freezing out on the cold side would add enough weight for the tidal locking to flip around. A frozen out atmosphere and a boiled off atmosphere might look very similar.
That sounds really cool, and honestly i now really want a scifi where a planet is tidally locked and regularly flips from the atmosphere freezing onto the dark side of the planet and making it unstable. (The actual realism doesn't matter, DS9 had tachyons push a solar sailer to FTL to complete an interstellar trip in maybe a week universe time, i forget the exact details of the episode.)
I get excited when I hear "Earth like" but it usually winds up being just similar in mass and/or size, but not in composition of atmosphere and surface. Is there a designation for "Just like Earth in the Goldielocks Zone" or has that not been decided yet? Another great episode Dr Becky! I love your work. You make all of this information easily digestible.
I propose we adapt the Star Trek system if no official one exists, because we’re all nerds here after all. The closest for what you described would probably be Class K, possibly Class M depending on if we got atmospheric composition from JWST.
@@RealBelisariusCawl Shh! You're not supposed to talk about that in public! ;p Anyway, yeah, I totally agree. Why not go with Star Trek nomenclature, half the scientist and engineers in the world will have at least heard it at some point and the other half are probably lying so they sound cool! lol
@@R0bobb1e I got that reference! For real though it’s practically ready-made for us already. Hand it over to the people in the know and let them fine-tune it for the real world and I say it’s a winner.
Love your videos Dr. Becky and I just bought your book and I'm looking forward to reading it. What amazes me about Astrophysics and Astronomy is that here we are as humans, products of the Universe trying to figure out how the Universe works. So essentially, we are the Universe trying to figure itself out. I often wonder if that's our primary purpose as living beings.
Chi Squared takes me back. Was using that during my first degree, or possibly my A Levels. I can tell this is going to be a big year for you with so much going on around JWST.
will there be any jwst observations of stars that are closer to our own at 5,000 K? or am i just impatient lol. i just feel like dwarf stars would be a bad spot to look for possible life having conditions due to radiation.
Not all exoplanet being discovered are habitable for us humans. They may be too hot, too cold, not enough vegetation or surface water, atmosphere may be too toxic for us. But this doesn't mean that other organic, and sentient lifeforms can't or don't already live there.
We can never know unless we stand on it. The galaxy morphology problems and space /time crisis is far more life-changing and Revolutionsty to all fields of study.
@@michaelsommers2356 Venus taught us about the aspirin paradox though .. Depending upon who interprets the evidence it can show the exhale of life. Even then that person is subjective to changing their interpretation depending on what day of the week it is.
@Dr. Becky Good lord, what a superb presentation. What a pleasure, to be able to pause this rich video at numerous points and dig down to my heart's content. You are pearl, Dr. B. Many thanks.
Dr. Becky, your passion is infectious. I'm in the US, faced some hard financial times, and had stopped looking up while facing those challenges. I may be poor - but I'm not ignorant. I know enough physics to understand things, until the the real physicists start going off into quantum hypotheses. I will most likely check out James' posts from the AAS, thanks for the link! And also, thank you for giving me my universe back. You're doing good work here. I think I'll go dust off my ancient 70mm Meade in the basement, and take it outside for a look around. I don't think I've used it since the Venus transit years ago. Of course, I didn't use an eyepiece for *that*! I hope I haven't misplaced them.. 😂
I’m so sorry to hear you’ve been going through some hard times but so glad to hear I’ve helped to lessen the mental strain that comes with it. Have fun dusting off the telescope!
@@DrBecky , i think it will be alright. I've retired from work - a bit early by American standards - I'm only 60, but I was fed up with the nonsense going on at my workplace. I think I have enough investments to sell that i can last the two years before I can start collecting my government pension here. But I *really* have to get my 'scope into some sort of order! The little sighting scope on the side is seriously misaligned..and yeah. I misplaced my low magnification eyepiece. Love my high-mag, but it's not really the tool to target an object. Especially when you've forgotten how to find your way around the sky anymore. But - I found a red star (don't know if it was Aldebaran or not, I just strolled out without consulting any website that would tell me what was observable). Let the neighbor kid have a look.."Stars can be red?!?" Yeah, kid..depends on what temperature they're burning. I hope I was helping, too. Keep doing what you're doing. Hoisting a pint in your honor, and hoping that there's a pack of children who see you and say, "..wait. Other stars have *planets*?" i can't wait to see what the Webb will do, either. I just need a professional like you to tell me what the data & images mean. I swear, if this thing can return an image of an exoplanet (even if it's just a 'hot Jupiter') I might cry. 🤣 Thanks again, Dr. Smethurst. I owe you a favor or three.
Great video! As the lead of the team that discovered the TESS signal, the TESS data exclude the possibility of the transits being caused by instrumental effects or stellar variability. However, the transit appeared to be grazing and could have been confused with a background eclipsing binary very close on the sky to the host star. TESS was designed to be a finder scope for JWST and that’s working out beautifully.
😎What a wonderful time to be alive! JWST is providing so many amazing discoveries with countless more to come! Dr. Becky, thanks for all your hard work keeping the rest of us up-to-date!
The only thing depressing about knowing that there could be an Earth-like planet out there is that we will likely never be able to explore it. These planets are so far away that it'll probably be a 1000 years from now (or more) before we have the technology to even view it close enough to discover if there's existing life.
There could be hints of life in these atmospheric spectra. Our planet only has a lot of free oxygen in its atmosphere because of life--it's produced by photosynthesizing organisms. If we found an "Earthlike" planet with a lot of O2 in its atmosphere, that would be very exciting.
Thank you so much for what you're doing, I love your videos! You're so talented at explaining things so that we, ordinary people, can understand the wonders of the universe ❤️
I hope we can find planets in orbital planes other than "level" relative to ours. I'm thinking that the answer, given observations over the orbital period of the most distant planet, might be possible in a complex displacement of the star corresponding to the known orbital periods of the planets given their distance from the center of the star's orbit around its center of mass. I'm imagining that idea showing us an orbital plane of multiple large planets with no transits from our view. This would get seriously complicated with several big objects in different orbital planes.
I like how the last line actually has a double meaning, 'skim the surface' in terms of JWST's capabilities, but also because it's looking at light "skimming the surface," of the planet it's observing.
I honestly really dislike the way "Earth-like" descriptor is currently used for exoplanets. It's overly broad and, quite frankly, misleading. It leads to a lot of confusion and misplaced hype in the non-science literate media. At the very least, any planet that is tidally locked should be disqualified from using the "Earth-like" title due to the fact the amount of habitable surface area on the planet is drastically reduced; thus making it far less likely that any form of life has evolved there.
I love the outro. How? How was that the song front and center, ready to be called up😂😂 in your brain? Made me smile. And, once again, provided me with the type of fascinating information my brain loves to devour.
Unlikely in our lifetimes sadly. The farthest thing we’ve ever sent out has only just breached the bounds of the solar system, barely a fraction of the light years of distance we’d need to travel to get to these places. That being said there are theoretical gravity assisted techniques that could get a probe going much, much faster than either of the Voyagers, so maybe. Don’t know that exact numbers on those though
My bad, when I said gravitational assist I was thinking of a totally different concept, I think I was thinking of light sails. Light sails could hypothetically get a light spacecraft traveling very fast
@@Canyon_Lark gravitational slingshot stuff right? I know it'd take awhile to retrieve any data, but theoretically easy? Idk, intergalactic flybys might have moral implications perhaps too lol and is more complicated than I know. What we have is awesome enough and more I think my interest is in seeing the continents and water if any and just seeing the eccentricities of a planet as similar to ours has a certain warmth, for any generation that gets to experience that, would be insane
@@watchmy666 yes absolutely, it would be such a treat to get a closer look. I've also seen this idea of using the gravitational lensing of the sun itself to photograph the surfaces of exoplanets, though it would involve a massive mirror that would actually be made up of many (thousands? millions? I don't know) smaller spacecraft with individual mirrors which coordinate their positions with each other and the gravitational well of the sun to focus the light from an exoplanet to get a really clear image of it's surface. It would be an immense project but according to this video I saw is more plausible than you'd think. So who knows, maybe we will get a peek in this short life! I'll try to find the video...
@@watchmy666 okay here, search "The Solar Gravitational Lens will Map Exoplanets. Seriously." on RUclips, the video was uploaded by Launch Pad Astronomy
Dr. Becky your content is always fun to watch and more importantly its not just click bait!! always count on you for facts and entertainment. Long time watcher first time commenting!! Please keep posting I love it!
As the paper stated.. JWST has yet to fully reveal its best efforts.. 🙂 Still very cool to find out a planet 41 lightyears away is orbiting a dwarf star.. 2 Earth days for its orbit around its sun.. 😂 Can't wait to see more discoveries from JWST!!
Can we normalize calling it “Webb” the way we call the HST “Hubble”? “Webb” is one syllable. “Jaydoubleyouesstee” is six syllables - that is a lot harder for kids and people with literacy disabilities to say & process. Let’s just call it Webb. Please?
14:50 That diagonal border that marks the limit between the filled side and the empty side of the graph is a perfect representation of the technical limitation of our instruments. Sadly, the area around 1 Earth mass and 300-400 orbit period is empty, meaning we still haven't found a real 'Earth twin' even if the tally of discovered exoplanets is already above 5k now. So much still to discover!
If you're in the mood for some really neat footage/science there's a documentary about building the JWST and what went into it. My favorite bit was how they placed and angled the gold plates. It had to be so accurately done in order to "see" as far and clear like it does that the build team had to freeze each plate to shrink it ever so slightly, place it at the precise position and angle and lock it into place before it started to thaw leading to the material expanding again due to the temperature so it was sealed in correctly. It was just super cool to see and learn about 😁
6:03 i see a unique observation... that duplicate flux anomaly at the end of the transit.. planet seems tidally locked to star while having a tiny moon which is half in orbit of and double locked to each. admittedly, guesswork but the sensitivity of the instrumentation should rule out anomylous flux of every 'flux' data point. makes me wonder if this is artificial moon, perhaps a solution for harsh solar dynamics? would like to see some near optical zoom action.
@Steph S. I'm not sure there's any special blocks for anyone to apply, I believe anyone can submit a proposal, at any time (during the submission windows) but the odds of any outside the professional astrophysics community having one accepted are extremely low because, as you implied, the proposal has to be one of the best received to be considered. Any non-scientist wanting to write a proposal would have to engage a professional in the field to help them, at the very least.
It’s good to remember if you want to get a transit of an earth like planet form a sun sized star, you are looking about 1 year between transits. So you would need atleast 2 years of observations to even a hint of the existence the planet. The detection will also be a lot smaller because the star would be much larger then a red dwarf. It’s going to be a long time before we find a celestial mirror to our solar system.
To be proud of JW finding a exoplanet is underestimating the tremendous capacity to gather information, by its powerful spectroscopy, capable of deciphering radiations near event horizon of singularities, of BH, magnetars, pulsars etc.
Dr Becky, Fascinating!! Keep up the great work! Someday humanity might find on a world with a red sky. Looking up at night might get folks a little dizzy though. We need to develop program code that can show us theoretically likely possible conditions that an earth-size Red Dwarf planet could experience in its development that would result in it having an O2 atmosphere with H2O oceans, rotation and magnetic field. Using the data output, you could maybe refine the search of red dwarfs contributing to these conditions...
Love the video!! Just my pet peeve as an astronomer looking for exoplanets around ultracool (M7 and cooler) - calling this star and the type of star studied a "dwarf star" when you mean cool/ultracool star just drives me a little crazy because all main sequence stars are dwarf stars
Excellent explanation Dr. Becky. In my (very) limited knowledge Is this possible that a red dwarf can radiate energy in the visible spectrum to allow compatible life, as I understand it would be mainly infrareded?..thanks
I feel like we tend to get tunnel vision when we talk about extraterrestrial atmospheres, and ignore the importance of magnetic fields which shield us from deadly particles.
We're mainly only finding planets that have short orbital periods, around smaller stars, because they're easier to find with the transit method (yes, I know about radial velocity, etc. as well). So it seems reasonable to say that the planets we're finding aren't going to be truly "Earth-like" simply because it's so much more difficult for our current capabilities to find long orbital period planets around larger, brighter stars. Is anything being done to find ways to detect longer period planets en-masse around larger stars?
It was always going to be the case that close-in planets would be found in abundance first. Hot Jupiters were only a surprise because nobody thought there would be any planets that massive so close to their stars. But, yes, they are always working on better equipment and better techniques for detecting true Earth twins. That's the holy grail in exoplanet research and will be for decades to come -- more detections in ever increasing resolution.
Sometimes I think that another highly sought after skill for astrophysicists is to be able to come up with elaborate instrument naming and related acronyms
Came here to learn, but i think i could listen to you talk all night! Maybe it's just because it's late already, but that was such an easy listen! Very easy to follow, and I felt well-presented. A lot of vids lack this quality of energy and apparent passion. I'm trying to turn encourage my son to turn his eyes skyward, so shall be introducing him to your channel if the rest is even half as good quality (i didn't spend half the time studying astrophysics that I wanted to when I was is age, and well, I have to be allowed to manipulate SOME of his interests, right? xd). I suspect he'll find your explanations quite clear as he begins this leg of his learning journey. Thanks in advance - because I normally forget to comment :)
It's incredible that we can measure the composition of the atmosphere of a planet light-years away. Almost feels surreal that we can do it with our current tech.
It seems you sit like I do, even in chairs, cross-legged, yoga-style! Glad I'm not quite as weird as I thought, LOL! The JWST, or the Webb, I call it for short, constantly amazes me! I was blown away by Hubble for the decades it's been active! My youngest son grew up with it showing amazing images, though, so he thought it was the "norm." BUT... then comes Webb! Now, the Webb's images are blowing BOTH of our minds, LOL! And I am loving the show! Still... a YEAR being TWO DAYS? That's REALLY bizarre! Being tidally locked makes it logical for it to have any atmosphere be cooked off, though. I agree strongly, Webb will be a game-changer for exoplanetary "exploration," too, just like it has already been for lots and LOTS of the other astronomy sciences.
not really it was concieved in 2004 and should of been completed by 2013 , it is now already 2023 , so the telescope is 10 years old by the time of release and the idea is 20 years old, next telescope i hope wil go smoother and must be able to directly image exoplanets , else its really not worth it
Dr Becky, Anton Petrov, Astrum, three youtubers responsible for re-igniting my passion about space. we're lucky you guys produce free content for us to enjoy
Thank you so much. Though I don't fully understand the data meaning to simple earth like variations, your explanations are strong and clear, your enthusiasm is infection. Love the news flash.
Your explanations are always so dense and specific, yet clear and understandable . Your joy and amazement make it easy to listen and absorb your videos.
Thank you !
Thank you George!
Omg simping must be so much fun.
@@Andrei-Rex Omg trying to make others feel bad about themselves must be so much fun! 🙄
Your energy is always appreciated. I don't think anyone else brings so much to the topics while talking about graphs & charts & still making it come alive.
Becky gets excited, I gets excited!
Thank you that’s very kind of you to say 🤗
@@DrBecky JWST just needs one sufficiently large rock to collide with it.
@@reasonerenlightened2456 I would think that would be the last thing it needs! 😛 (Yes, I'm being obtuse.)
@@reasonerenlightened2456 much like our planet
This telescope just blows my mind every time it finds something! So much information in such little time! Imagine what this machine can find in 10 years! 🤯😍
You're (describing) cherrypicking, or at least inadvertently using cherrypicked data as a basis; all the publicized findings _are_ the interesting ones. But I agree with your optimism.
We seriously need more of it.
Sadly it might not last that long, its fuel is meant to keep it in the stable orbit for around 5 years. But I'm certain scientists will use as much data from it as they can!
@@cawareyoudoin7379 That's not correct. JWSTs fuel was meant to last for a minimum of 5 years and with good hope for 10 years. It was dependent on how much fuel it would have required to make it to the L2 point. But ESAs Ariane 5 rocket was fired that precisely and that optimal, that JWSTs fuel might even last for more than 20 years!
edit: I had to correct L5 to L2 typo...
@@joshyoung1440 the fact that jwst was able to gather a haystack do huge that we already found a bunch of potential needles is mind blowing
I volunteered for the TESS planetary hunter project on Zooniverse and sifted through around 2k charts in dec :O. It's addictive and so exciting when you find something no one has seen before! I found the detection of a HUGE dwarf nova (A flash 12000x the stars normal brightness!), it was soo cool to see on the graph (although it had already been catalogued in a previous sector, or by a previous study). Also some Eclipsing binaries or trinary star systems make the coolest patterns :D.
Thanks for volunteering your time like that! My colleagues at Oxford run that project 🥳
@@DrBecky Thanks to your colleagues for putting together such a cohesive project. Some of the other's I looked at on zooniverse were either really confusingly put together, or just outright didn't function properly. The TESS project is so simple to pick up, and has a wealth of supporting information and a really active team and community. They do great work imho. It's also pretty fun if you don't mind sifting through data charts to find the hidden gems. 👍
You also get your name on the discovery paper released for any new planet you help to identify, the organisers don't take all the credit, and they share the glory with us hobbiests, which I think is a really neat touch. ☺️
How awesome for you to be such an enthusiastic participant in the world's largest and most futile turd hunt. Thanks for sharing the way you waste your time!
Great reporting as always! Thanks Dr. Becky😊
Your channel is my favourite way to stay up to date on space news. 😊 Thank you for doing this!
Earth-like could also mean Venus-like, and maybe even Mars-like. Hopefully, one of these days, we'll be able to determine what gasses are in their atmosphere.
Excellent post. Glad to see people using their brain.
Would a Mars-like CO2 atmosphere being so thin still show up on JWST spectra?
@@billbyrd5150 There is a possibility, but the equipment would have to be extremely sensitive in order to register what little light is filtered through it's atmosphere.
Next telescope: Quantum telescope. They'll probably call it the: "Q-scope."
@@JOHNRMECH next one is going to be named after Carl Sagan
Really enjoy your explanations of the scientific data and results from this new research!
As someone with 2 doctorates who has also taught and mentored many students over the years, your explanations are so well-thought out and relatable, great for even the lay person, while being detailed enough for the professional. You're also so passionate about the material, and that passion infects the viewer. You must be a great in-person professor. I consider myself an amateur cosmologist, though I'm in the medical field. So glad I stumbled upon your channel!
I hope you realize that humans don't know anything about exoplanets and we never will. Videos claiming to know things about surface conditions on exoplanets are pure fiction.
@moonbeamskies Naturally. There is only so much information you can glean from telescopes at such a distance. Furthermore, given that you're looking into the past, you can't even know that the objects you're viewing even look the same in the present day. And unless we discover a faster than light means of travel, we'll never be able to visit them.
@@moonbeamskies3346 Had to be said, but this is "give me a bigger telescope" week. Next week is "give me a bigger collider" week, "please fund my mutated virus" week probably will not come back for 2 more years and will be in Rio 2025.
@@remander3873 This is only 41 light years away. We're not exactly looking into the deep past with this study and in the lifetime of red dwarf systems a billion years is hardly anything.
@James Sure You could say that about a lot of career choices, honestly. In this case, however, I would argue that studying the universe has the potential to not only tell us about the past but inform us on the present and potential for the future.
"The universe did not create itself."
This statement is beyond mankind's most brilliant minds to comprehend.
Imagine you were at the movie house, but you were not allowed to the cinema hall itself. You could hear loud sounds and dialogues through the walls, you could even peek through a tiny little hole, and you even managed to get some idea what the movies were about. You've been doing like this for years. And now you finally got a seat at the hall. And the show begins. That's how JWST feels like.
My son was at the AAS in Seattle. He was with the Harvard and Smithsonian's CFA. He interned with them last Summer helping to improve the Fits of TESS Objects of Interest with GAIA DR3. He really enjoyed it and is very happy he's chosen Physics and Math as his majors.
Thanks Dr. Becky! You bring all of us space nerds together and great video! ❤
Great presentation. Thankyou!
Love hearing about finding other star and plants. It's the thought of what or who else could be out there. Thanks for sharing.
From the moment that I saw the observations of the transit were four days apart (5:14) to the moment Dr. Becky said it (7:54) all I could think was, "that planet has to be tidally locked."
Thanks for covering our LHS 475b paper!
- Ryan MacDonald
Your graphics make it so much easier to understand the things you’re explaining
Its so exciting we are finally finding stuff like this. At the same time I feel pretty bad for the exoplanet folks that literally require this specific instrument to do said research. I'd imagine the competition is a tad fierce. I guess its nothing too new though, as the big scopes have basically always been oversubscribed.
The accelerating advancements in rocket tech will lead to a significant drop in launch costs. Leading to less complex deployments of space telescopes with greater capabilities. Exciting times for those looking to develop the next generation.
@@patr5902: _"The accelerating advancements in rocket tech ..."_
I'm still waiting for a space elevator.
This channel is GOLD!
Dr Becky...
Did you know, you make science fun! You're awesome, and a great asset to the science world!
Thanks for expanding my mind.
this is awesome :) go JWST
I love that you are no nonsense and only give factual info
I think another possibility for these planets that are tidally locked is that their atmospheres have frozen out on the cold side. I remember reading a paper a long time ago that went through this possibility and whether the atmosphere freezing out on the cold side would add enough weight for the tidal locking to flip around. A frozen out atmosphere and a boiled off atmosphere might look very similar.
That sounds really cool, and honestly i now really want a scifi where a planet is tidally locked and regularly flips from the atmosphere freezing onto the dark side of the planet and making it unstable. (The actual realism doesn't matter, DS9 had tachyons push a solar sailer to FTL to complete an interstellar trip in maybe a week universe time, i forget the exact details of the episode.)
A possibly, but even there libration open a window for an atmospheric cycle.
@@jasonreed7522 I remember that episode, "Explorers". They were trying to recreate a trip that an ancient people (the Bajorans) supposedly made.
What if it has a moon ? Wouldn’t that help it to not be tidally locked ? Because lets face it tidally locked is a doomed rock.
@@TheMyrmo Pluto has an atmospheric cycle is it habitable?
Thank you, Dr. Becky!
I get excited when I hear "Earth like" but it usually winds up being just similar in mass and/or size, but not in composition of atmosphere and surface. Is there a designation for "Just like Earth in the Goldielocks Zone" or has that not been decided yet? Another great episode Dr Becky! I love your work. You make all of this information easily digestible.
I propose we adapt the Star Trek system if no official one exists, because we’re all nerds here after all.
The closest for what you described would probably be Class K, possibly Class M depending on if we got atmospheric composition from JWST.
@@RealBelisariusCawl Shh! You're not supposed to talk about that in public! ;p
Anyway, yeah, I totally agree. Why not go with Star Trek nomenclature, half the scientist and engineers in the world will have at least heard it at some point and the other half are probably lying so they sound cool! lol
@@R0bobb1e I got that reference!
For real though it’s practically ready-made for us already. Hand it over to the people in the know and let them fine-tune it for the real world and I say it’s a winner.
I always feel smarter after I watch Dr Becky explain these concepts that are completely foreign to me.
Love your videos Dr. Becky and I just bought your book and I'm looking forward to reading it. What amazes me about Astrophysics and Astronomy is that here we are as humans, products of the Universe trying to figure out how the Universe works. So essentially, we are the Universe trying to figure itself out. I often wonder if that's our primary purpose as living beings.
Chi Squared takes me back. Was using that during my first degree, or possibly my A Levels. I can tell this is going to be a big year for you with so much going on around JWST.
I love the thought of astronomers saying, “Well.. back to work.. got some TOIs to play with.” Fun = Flow. Love it.
Thank Dr Becky for covering this subject. I really appreciate it
will there be any jwst observations of stars that are closer to our own at 5,000 K? or am i just impatient lol. i just feel like dwarf stars would be a bad spot to look for possible life having conditions due to radiation.
Not all exoplanet being discovered are habitable for us humans. They may be too hot, too cold, not enough vegetation or surface water, atmosphere may be too toxic for us. But this doesn't mean that other organic, and sentient lifeforms can't or don't already live there.
Vegetation 😂
Just to put this in perspective there are is no exoplanet discovered yet that could be habitable for humans.
We can never know unless we stand on it.
The galaxy morphology problems and space /time crisis is far more life-changing and Revolutionsty to all fields of study.
@@dadsonworldwide3238 We've never set foot on Venus, yet we know with certainty that we can't live there.
@@michaelsommers2356 Venus taught us about the aspirin paradox though .. Depending upon who interprets the evidence it can show the exhale of life.
Even then that person is subjective to changing their interpretation depending on what day of the week it is.
@Dr. Becky Good lord, what a superb presentation. What a pleasure, to be able to pause this rich video at numerous points and dig down to my heart's content. You are pearl, Dr. B. Many thanks.
Dr. Becky, your passion is infectious. I'm in the US, faced some hard financial times, and had stopped looking up while facing those challenges. I may be poor - but I'm not ignorant. I know enough physics to understand things, until the the real physicists start going off into quantum hypotheses. I will most likely check out James' posts from the AAS, thanks for the link!
And also, thank you for giving me my universe back. You're doing good work here. I think I'll go dust off my ancient 70mm Meade in the basement, and take it outside for a look around. I don't think I've used it since the Venus transit years ago. Of course, I didn't use an eyepiece for *that*! I hope I haven't misplaced them.. 😂
Keep looking up, friend.
I’m so sorry to hear you’ve been going through some hard times but so glad to hear I’ve helped to lessen the mental strain that comes with it. Have fun dusting off the telescope!
@@DrBecky , i think it will be alright. I've retired from work - a bit early by American standards - I'm only 60, but I was fed up with the nonsense going on at my workplace. I think I have enough investments to sell that i can last the two years before I can start collecting my government pension here. But I *really* have to get my 'scope into some sort of order! The little sighting scope on the side is seriously misaligned..and yeah. I misplaced my low magnification eyepiece. Love my high-mag, but it's not really the tool to target an object. Especially when you've forgotten how to find your way around the sky anymore. But - I found a red star (don't know if it was Aldebaran or not, I just strolled out without consulting any website that would tell me what was observable). Let the neighbor kid have a look.."Stars can be red?!?" Yeah, kid..depends on what temperature they're burning. I hope I was helping, too.
Keep doing what you're doing. Hoisting a pint in your honor, and hoping that there's a pack of children who see you and say, "..wait. Other stars have *planets*?"
i can't wait to see what the Webb will do, either. I just need a professional like you to tell me what the data & images mean. I swear, if this thing can return an image of an exoplanet (even if it's just a 'hot Jupiter') I might cry. 🤣
Thanks again, Dr. Smethurst. I owe you a favor or three.
Greetings from a similarly impassioned stargazer from the U.K.
Great video! As the lead of the team that discovered the TESS signal, the TESS data exclude the possibility of the transits being caused by instrumental effects or stellar variability. However, the transit appeared to be grazing and could have been confused with a background eclipsing binary very close on the sky to the host star. TESS was designed to be a finder scope for JWST and that’s working out beautifully.
😎What a wonderful time to be alive! JWST is providing so many amazing discoveries with countless more to come! Dr. Becky, thanks for all your hard work keeping the rest of us up-to-date!
First of your videos ive seen, not the last though. Liked and subscribed, your energy and love for the subject is refreshing
The only thing depressing about knowing that there could be an Earth-like planet out there is that we will likely never be able to explore it. These planets are so far away that it'll probably be a 1000 years from now (or more) before we have the technology to even view it close enough to discover if there's existing life.
There could be hints of life in these atmospheric spectra. Our planet only has a lot of free oxygen in its atmosphere because of life--it's produced by photosynthesizing organisms. If we found an "Earthlike" planet with a lot of O2 in its atmosphere, that would be very exciting.
I got goosebumps with that last sentence... can't wait for other findings from JWST and thanks for explaining it for dummies like me :)
Thank you so much for what you're doing, I love your videos! You're so talented at explaining things so that we, ordinary people, can understand the wonders of the universe ❤️
Get in!!! another upload by Dr.Becky
I hope we can find planets in orbital planes other than "level" relative to ours. I'm thinking that the answer, given observations over the orbital period of the most distant planet, might be possible in a complex displacement of the star corresponding to the known orbital periods of the planets given their distance from the center of the star's orbit around its center of mass. I'm imagining that idea showing us an orbital plane of multiple large planets with no transits from our view. This would get seriously complicated with several big objects in different orbital planes.
Exactly.
I stumbled onto this channel, love your work!
I like how the last line actually has a double meaning, 'skim the surface' in terms of JWST's capabilities, but also because it's looking at light "skimming the surface," of the planet it's observing.
You explain everything so well. Such a pleasure to watch. Good job!
I honestly really dislike the way "Earth-like" descriptor is currently used for exoplanets. It's overly broad and, quite frankly, misleading. It leads to a lot of confusion and misplaced hype in the non-science literate media. At the very least, any planet that is tidally locked should be disqualified from using the "Earth-like" title due to the fact the amount of habitable surface area on the planet is drastically reduced; thus making it far less likely that any form of life has evolved there.
I love the outro. How? How was that the song front and center, ready to be called up😂😂 in your brain? Made me smile. And, once again, provided me with the type of fascinating information my brain loves to devour.
I hope one day we get pictures close to some of these earthlike planets
Unlikely in our lifetimes sadly. The farthest thing we’ve ever sent out has only just breached the bounds of the solar system, barely a fraction of the light years of distance we’d need to travel to get to these places. That being said there are theoretical gravity assisted techniques that could get a probe going much, much faster than either of the Voyagers, so maybe. Don’t know that exact numbers on those though
My bad, when I said gravitational assist I was thinking of a totally different concept, I think I was thinking of light sails. Light sails could hypothetically get a light spacecraft traveling very fast
@@Canyon_Lark gravitational slingshot stuff right? I know it'd take awhile to retrieve any data, but theoretically easy? Idk, intergalactic flybys might have moral implications perhaps too lol and is more complicated than I know.
What we have is awesome enough and more
I think my interest is in seeing the continents and water if any and just seeing the eccentricities of a planet as similar to ours has a certain warmth, for any generation that gets to experience that, would be insane
@@watchmy666 yes absolutely, it would be such a treat to get a closer look. I've also seen this idea of using the gravitational lensing of the sun itself to photograph the surfaces of exoplanets, though it would involve a massive mirror that would actually be made up of many (thousands? millions? I don't know) smaller spacecraft with individual mirrors which coordinate their positions with each other and the gravitational well of the sun to focus the light from an exoplanet to get a really clear image of it's surface. It would be an immense project but according to this video I saw is more plausible than you'd think. So who knows, maybe we will get a peek in this short life! I'll try to find the video...
@@watchmy666 okay here, search "The Solar Gravitational Lens will Map Exoplanets. Seriously." on RUclips, the video was uploaded by Launch Pad Astronomy
Dr. Becky your content is always fun to watch and more importantly its not just click bait!! always count on you for facts and entertainment. Long time watcher first time commenting!! Please keep posting I love it!
As the paper stated.. JWST has yet to fully reveal its best efforts.. 🙂
Still very cool to find out a planet 41 lightyears away is orbiting a dwarf star.. 2 Earth days for its orbit around its sun.. 😂
Can't wait to see more discoveries from JWST!!
Discovered ur channel by this vid getting recommended and I'm grateful, intrigued and passionate
Great!
Thanks for all your hard work!
Hope they can also rule out huge spaceships.
"Good news, everyone! Those transits weren't inhabitable planets! They were huge alien spaceships - and they're coming our way."
It still blows my mind how much further along we have come in terms of astronomical discoveries thanks to JWST.
Can we normalize calling it “Webb” the way we call the HST “Hubble”?
“Webb” is one syllable. “Jaydoubleyouesstee” is six syllables - that is a lot harder for kids and people with literacy disabilities to say & process.
Let’s just call it Webb. Please?
14:50 That diagonal border that marks the limit between the filled side and the empty side of the graph is a perfect representation of the technical limitation of our instruments. Sadly, the area around 1 Earth mass and 300-400 orbit period is empty, meaning we still haven't found a real 'Earth twin' even if the tally of discovered exoplanets is already above 5k now. So much still to discover!
Whow
If you're in the mood for some really neat footage/science there's a documentary about building the JWST and what went into it. My favorite bit was how they placed and angled the gold plates. It had to be so accurately done in order to "see" as far and clear like it does that the build team had to freeze each plate to shrink it ever so slightly, place it at the precise position and angle and lock it into place before it started to thaw leading to the material expanding again due to the temperature so it was sealed in correctly. It was just super cool to see and learn about 😁
You explain all of these concepts so clearly! That is such a special skill.
My main takeaway is "best get a wiggle on" which is just a fantastic saying. Thanks for sharing that little gem, doc!
6:03 i see a unique observation... that duplicate flux anomaly at the end of the transit.. planet seems tidally locked to star while having a tiny moon which is half in orbit of and double locked to each. admittedly, guesswork but the sensitivity of the instrumentation should rule out anomylous flux of every 'flux' data point. makes me wonder if this is artificial moon, perhaps a solution for harsh solar dynamics? would like to see some near optical zoom action.
Awesome episode, I love the way you explain this topic, I’m pretty new but already a big fan!
thank you for your explanations, very easy to understand. what's really cool is how you physicists can 'schedule' (or request) observations with JWST
@Steph S. I'm not sure there's any special blocks for anyone to apply, I believe anyone can submit a proposal, at any time (during the submission windows) but the odds of any outside the professional astrophysics community having one accepted are extremely low because, as you implied, the proposal has to be one of the best received to be considered. Any non-scientist wanting to write a proposal would have to engage a professional in the field to help them, at the very least.
Back from a two week vaca and so excited to hear about the new planet!!!! STOKED!!!!!
I can tell you really do love what you do! Unlike some who just dryly present their information. Kudos! Thank you so much!
Thanks for another outstanding, understandable science vid!
JWST is worth every penny! Thanks Dr. Becky for a great presentation! 😀
Thank you Dr. Becky! More fascinating content to quench my curiosity for science!
It’s good to remember if you want to get a transit of an earth like planet form a sun sized star, you are looking about 1 year between transits. So you would need atleast 2 years of observations to even a hint of the existence the planet. The detection will also be a lot smaller because the star would be much larger then a red dwarf. It’s going to be a long time before we find a celestial mirror to our solar system.
Amazing! Thank you for your work!
"Ain't nothing gonna break my stride.
Nobody gonna slow *ipad closed* me down-
oh no!
I gotta detect that transit."
17:55
To be proud of JW finding a exoplanet is underestimating the tremendous capacity to gather information, by its powerful spectroscopy, capable of deciphering radiations near event horizon of singularities, of BH, magnetars, pulsars etc.
Thanks!
always appreciate the information and enthusiasm dr becky
Sunspots confused a lot of early astronomers when looking for the planet “Vulcan” which some theorized was closer to the sun than Mercury.
Thanks for the update!
Another great explanation, with excellent range of information understandable at many levels.
The science is exciting and everything but when is Dr. Becky going to release a song compilation?
Thank you! I listened to you with interest again
Marcus House then straight into a Dr. Becky video…? Thank you for your commitment and your genuine enthusiasm for science and space!
WOW it's crazy how much information can be gathered about these planets that are so far way like SO FAR away o.o
Dr Becky,
Fascinating!! Keep up the great work! Someday humanity might find on a world with a red sky. Looking up at night might get folks a little dizzy though. We need to develop program code that can show us theoretically likely possible conditions that an earth-size Red Dwarf planet could experience in its development that would result in it having an O2 atmosphere with H2O oceans, rotation and magnetic field. Using the data output, you could maybe refine the search of red dwarfs contributing to these conditions...
Love the video!! Just my pet peeve as an astronomer looking for exoplanets around ultracool (M7 and cooler) - calling this star and the type of star studied a "dwarf star" when you mean cool/ultracool star just drives me a little crazy because all main sequence stars are dwarf stars
Thanks Sami! I just used the same language as in Lustig-Yeager et al. so I’d take it up with them 😅
Excellent explanation Dr. Becky. In my (very) limited knowledge Is this possible that a red dwarf can radiate energy in the visible spectrum to allow compatible life, as I understand it would be mainly infrareded?..thanks
I feel like we tend to get tunnel vision when we talk about extraterrestrial atmospheres, and ignore the importance of magnetic fields which shield us from deadly particles.
We're mainly only finding planets that have short orbital periods, around smaller stars, because they're easier to find with the transit method (yes, I know about radial velocity, etc. as well). So it seems reasonable to say that the planets we're finding aren't going to be truly "Earth-like" simply because it's so much more difficult for our current capabilities to find long orbital period planets around larger, brighter stars.
Is anything being done to find ways to detect longer period planets en-masse around larger stars?
It was always going to be the case that close-in planets would be found in abundance first. Hot Jupiters were only a surprise because nobody thought there would be any planets that massive so close to their stars.
But, yes, they are always working on better equipment and better techniques for detecting true Earth twins. That's the holy grail in exoplanet research and will be for decades to come -- more detections in ever increasing resolution.
Sometimes I think that another highly sought after skill for astrophysicists is to be able to come up with elaborate instrument naming and related acronyms
Came here to learn, but i think i could listen to you talk all night! Maybe it's just because it's late already, but that was such an easy listen!
Very easy to follow, and I felt well-presented. A lot of vids lack this quality of energy and apparent passion.
I'm trying to turn encourage my son to turn his eyes skyward, so shall be introducing him to your channel if the rest is even half as good quality (i didn't spend half the time studying astrophysics that I wanted to when I was is age, and well, I have to be allowed to manipulate SOME of his interests, right? xd). I suspect he'll find your explanations quite clear as he begins this leg of his learning journey.
Thanks in advance - because I normally forget to comment :)
Late congrats on blowin' by 500K subs. Always such good stuff.
thanks for the update.
It's incredible that we can measure the composition of the atmosphere of a planet light-years away.
Almost feels surreal that we can do it with our current tech.
Well that's because the planet doesn't change much at the ranges we are looking. A few hundred of thousand light years isnt much
It seems you sit like I do, even in chairs, cross-legged, yoga-style! Glad I'm not quite as weird as I thought, LOL!
The JWST, or the Webb, I call it for short, constantly amazes me! I was blown away by Hubble for the decades it's been active! My youngest son grew up with it showing amazing images, though, so he thought it was the "norm." BUT... then comes Webb!
Now, the Webb's images are blowing BOTH of our minds, LOL! And I am loving the show! Still... a YEAR being TWO DAYS? That's REALLY bizarre! Being tidally locked makes it logical for it to have any atmosphere be cooked off, though.
I agree strongly, Webb will be a game-changer for exoplanetary "exploration," too, just like it has already been for lots and LOTS of the other astronomy sciences.
The capabilities of JWST just blows my mind. Of course, the hard yards still need to be done by the scientists, but James Webb is incredible.
not really it was concieved in 2004 and should of been completed by 2013 , it is now already 2023 , so the telescope is 10 years old by the time of release and the idea is 20 years old, next telescope i hope wil go smoother and must be able to directly image exoplanets , else its really not worth it
@3:20 love the nod to the Jorden Sparks song.
I love that Brilliant added course based on what you talk about
Dr Becky, Anton Petrov, Astrum, three youtubers responsible for re-igniting my passion about space. we're lucky you guys produce free content for us to enjoy
Thank you so much. Though I don't fully understand the data meaning to simple earth like variations, your explanations are strong and clear, your enthusiasm is infection. Love the news flash.