Sharmila Kuthunur is a Seattle-based science journalist covering astronomy, astrophysics and space exploration. Follow her on X @skuthunur.
That's according to a recent thought experiment in which scientists identified five"artificial" greenhouse gases that, if abundant enough, can be spotted in the atmospheres of certainare known to be some of the most potent and persistent heat-trapping gases emitted by humans during various industrial manufacturing processes, like those used to produce semiconductors, for instance.
If aliens were to terraform such a planet, the researchers found the JWST could identify the five greenhouse gases. One among them, sulfur hexafluoride, has a warming potential that exceeds carbon dioxide by 23,500 times. Minuscule amounts of this gas, which has a lifetime of at least 1,000 years, is sufficient to thaw an icy planet to a point where life-supporting liquid water flows on its surface, the researchers say. .
"The long lifetime makes these gases excellent technosignatures to systematically search for in comparison to shorter-lived signals," study co-author Daniel Angerhausen of ETH Zürich said in anotherOther similar, fluorinated gases may hover in an Earth-like atmosphere for up to 50,000 years, so"they wouldn't need to be replenished too often for a hospitable climate to be maintained," Schwieterman said in the statement.
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