Frontiers Lecture: Investigating Clouds on Worlds Beyond Our Solar System
Astronomer Eileen Gonzales uses James Webb Space Telescope data to explore brown dwarf atmospheres and what they reveal about distant worlds.
Why we picked this
Brown dwarfs sit in the gap between stars and planets — understanding their atmospheres with Webb data is how we learn to read the skies of worlds we will never visit.
Eileen Gonzales, assistant professor at San Francisco State University’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, presents new findings from the James Webb Space Telescope on the atmospheres of brown dwarfs — celestial bodies more massive than planets yet smaller than stars.
Using JWST’s unprecedented infrared sensitivity, Gonzales demonstrates techniques for identifying atmospheric molecules and cloud formations in these distant objects. The research has direct implications for our ability to detect biosignatures on exoplanets, including phosphine and other chemical markers that could indicate biological processes.
Part of the American Museum of Natural History’s Frontiers Lecture series.