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The John Batchelor Show

PREVIEW: GUEST NAME: Néstor Espinoza SUMMARY: John Batchelor converses with astronomer Néstor Espinoza about TRAPPIST-1e, an exoplanet 40 light-years away, and its perceived atmosphere. Espinoza dreams of an unlimited budget to launch a "fleet of James We

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

Society & Culture, News, Books, Arts

4.52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 18 September 2025

⏱️ 3 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

PREVIEW:
GUEST NAME: Néstor Espinoza
SUMMARY: John Batchelor converses with astronomer Néstor Espinoza about TRAPPIST-1e, an exoplanet 40 light-years away, and its perceived atmosphere. Espinoza dreams of an unlimited budget to launch a "fleet of James Webbs" to survey hundreds or thousands of habitable exoplanets, aiming to determine the commonality of life beyond Earth, an idea supported by others like Daniel Apai.
1906 WAR OF THE WORLDS

Transcript

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0:00.0

Building a coffee business?

0:01.9

Serving the best Americano in town is up to you.

0:04.1

But winning back time and growing your business, leave that to sum-up. Take orders and payments anywhere with the new SumUp terminal. Turn occasional customers into regulars with a free loyalty program. And with the SumUp point-of-sale system, you'll always know when you're running low on your best-selling blends. Visit sumup.com.com. This is John Batchel, conversation with astronomer Nestor Espinoza of Johns Hopkins

0:26.4

of the Space Telescope Institute, Space Telescope Science Institute. That's James Webb.

0:33.4

He and his colleagues have identified a planet, an exoplanet around a star 40 light years out, Trappist 1.

0:40.9

The planet they've focused on is Trappist 1E.

0:45.4

And the question is, is that the atmosphere we're perceiving, using James Webb?

0:51.9

And what is made of, what makes up the atmosphere. Is it possible that it's

0:56.7

heavy with nitrogen, with traces of methane? Much more to be learned. However, Nestor is also

1:04.4

wonderful with the possibility of an unlimited budget to pursue his investigations. And here's his idea with an unlimited budget

1:12.9

to find an exoplanets that are conducive to life as we understand it.

1:21.2

Much more of this tonight.

1:23.9

Trappist 1E is the planet that they're considering now.

1:28.0

Esther imagines hundreds of them.

1:31.6

Oh, a limited budget, I will launch a suite, a fleet of James Webb's out there.

1:39.8

I think the possibilities of, I mean, if you think about it,

1:45.0

one of the biggest questions that I have about the universe is,

1:48.9

is there life out there?

1:50.0

But not only is there life out there, but how common is life out there?

1:54.8

Not only in our galaxy, but in galaxies beyond.

1:58.4

And if you could give me an unlimited amount of funding, I will not construct just one James Webb, but several James Webb, a fleet of many, many telescopes, such that we can really grab all that light, all that information out of the exoplanets out there to make a survey.

2:15.6

Imagine making, not only studying like, you know, this one

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