New Miscellany: fine tuning, a basis for research (General)

by David Turell , Wednesday, March 12, 2025, 17:17 (1 day, 20 hours, 4 min. ago) @ David Turell

A study in atmospheres formation and aging presumes alien life possible:

https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-road-map-to-alien-life-passes-through-the-cosmic-sho...

:At first, Zahnle’s cosmic shoreline was largely ignored. Escape, he said, was not very popular — scientists mostly focused on how planets got atmospheres, not on how they lost them. But decades later, the discovery of thousands of worlds beyond our solar system has breathed new life — and billion-dollar stakes — into the overlooked idea. The search is on for habitable alien worlds, and eventually for signs of life in their atmospheres. To succeed, alien hunters will need to find planets with air. And the cosmic shoreline, if it truly is cosmic and extends to other star systems, could show them where to start.

"Scientists are now using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to put the concept to the test. The spacecraft has already sniffed for air around rocky planets orbiting a handful of small, cool stars. This spring, it will embark on a massive survey(opens a new tab) of dozens more rocky worlds.

***

"Astronomers have now identified nearly 6,000 planets orbiting a menagerie of alien suns. Some even hope to use JWST to characterize a handful of potentially habitable alien worlds. But JWST wasn’t initially designed to peer at exoplanets, which hadn’t even been discovered when it was conceived. And it has particular trouble resolving dim, rocky planets that orbit bigger, brighter stars. Worlds like Earth."

Comment: active research into atmospheres looking for alien life potentials presumes the universe is fine-tuned everywhere. This is a primary point and dhw's additional requirement of an Earth-like spot is secondary.