The James Webb Space Telescope and Exoplanets

Hands at the Darwin Ranch over at Deception Pass are excited about how the James Webb Space Telescope is checking out exoplanets: that means evolution. This great and expensive accomplishment is getting some great views of the heavens, but the main goal is to find extraterrestrial life. If there is life, it must have evolved, right. Not hardly! So far, however, it has inadvertently supported creation science predictions instead of materialistic views. Sort of causing secular views rapid unscheduled disassembly... Extrasolar planets are plentiful, but unsuitable for life. Mayhaps the JWST will provide more information.

HD 149026b (Smertrios), NASA / JPL-Caltech / T. Pyle (SSC) (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents)

Despite the artwork, nobody really knows what these planets look like. One listed as HD 149026b is also called Smertrios, after a character that eventually merged with the Roman god of war. It is one of those "hot Jupiters", big and unpleasant. Smertrios is hotter than our sun. Nice topic for discussion in the break room, but that's about it. The atmospheres of other exoplanets are being studied, but there is still no reason to think there will be lucky planets in the habitable zone. Secularists will not find ETs because God only created Earth to be in habited. You savvy that, Pilgrim?

Using our solar system as a template, astronomers expect that large exoplanets will have similar atmospheres to the gas giant planets we are so familiar with. So, what did this study find? The gas giant planets of our solar system have atmospheres dominated by the lighter gases, hydrogen and helium. While heavier elements, such as oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon are present in the atmospheres of the gas giant planets, they are in low abundance. Not so with Smertrios, which has far more carbon and oxygen than the gas giants in our solar system.

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Meanwhile, another research project also involving the JWST looked for evidence of an atmosphere around the exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 b. The star <TRAPPIST-1 has seven known planets, at least three of which are in the star’s habitable zone. . . .  As I have pointed out before, red dwarf stars such as TRAPPIST-1 tend to have powerful flares that, given the proximity of their orbiting earth-size planets, probably have stripped those planets of their atmospheres. This does not bode well for the three earth-size planets that orbit slightly farther out from TRAPPIST-1 in its habitable zone—they likely lack atmospheres as well. With no atmosphere, there can be no liquid water present, and both are essential for life.

The entire article can be read by clicking on "The James Webb Space Telescope Turns Its Attention to Exoplanets."