Similar celestial bodies may be able to sustain life

Dec 19, 2009 00:01 GMT  ·  By
This artist's conception shows a hypothetical gas giant planet with an Earth-like moon similar to the moon Pandora in the movie Avatar
   This artist's conception shows a hypothetical gas giant planet with an Earth-like moon similar to the moon Pandora in the movie Avatar

In James Cameron's new movie, Avatar, we are presented with the outstandingly beautiful exomoon Pandora, which is not only able to support life, but it is also already inhabited. In the famous Star Wars series, we are introduced to the forest moon of Endor, a lush place that offers all conditions for life to evolve. All these scenarios pertain to SF movies, but astronomers say that, within a few years, they could become a scientific fact. NASA's Kepler mission, launched this year, was designed specifically to hunt for Earth-sized exoplanets and similar exomoons, and it shows great potential in doing so.

“If Pandora existed, we potentially could detect it and study its atmosphere in the next decade,” Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger explains. In a new paper, she reveals that Kepler's findings could be followed up in using the planned James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which is currently only beginning to take shape at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The JWST will have all the capabilities needed to analyze the atmosphere of a distant exoplanet or exomoon, as it will feature the most advanced equipments ever placed on a space-based observation instrument.

“All of the gas giant planets in our solar system have rocky and icy moons. That raises the possibility that alien Jupiters will also have moons. Some of those may be Earth-sized and able to hold onto an atmosphere,” Kaltenegger says. Other astronomers give as examples the icy moons around Saturn and Jupiter. If the gas giants were closer to the Sun, it could be possible that celestial bodies such as Enceladus could melt their external ice surfaces, and reveal the liquid oceans underneath. Water, as most people already know, makes a good “team” with heat, to produce the ideal conditions for life.

“Alpha Centauri A is a bright, nearby star very similar to our Sun, so it gives us a strong signal. You would only need a handful of transits to find water, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and methane on an Earth-like moon such as Pandora. If the Avatar movie is right in its vision, we could characterize that moon with JWST in the near future,” she concludes.