Volcanism on Exoplanets - New Insights from JWST and Beyond

Up until now, the quest to find evidence of active volcanism on other worlds has been limited to our own solar system. We've definitively seen volcanoes erupting on Jupiter's moon, Io; we've possibly found evidence of geologically recent volcanism on Venus; and Mars has the largest volcano, although dormant, in Olympus Mons. With the advent of the JWST era, however, more possibilities have opened up. Colby Ostberg is an astronomer at UC Riverside and the lead author of an intriguing recent study on terrestrial exoplanet atmospheres and their potential volcanic activities, focusing on the direct imaging of such exoplanets. Dr. Franck Marchis and Colby discuss the results of the article, including the implication of volcanic activity on the color of an exoplanet and its atmospheric composition. Discover the future of exoplanetary science, where we're heading in our quest to understand these distant worlds, and how advances in technology and telescopic observations are bringing us closer to answers. (Recorded live on 5 October 2023.) Preprint of the paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.15972