ESA Voyage 2050 White Paper: Detecting life outside our solar system with a large high-contrast-imaging mission

2019/08/05 by Ignas Snellen, Simon Albrecht, Snellen, Ignas +131
Physics and Astronomy · #Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP) #FOS: Physical sciences #astro-ph.EP

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1908.01803

White paper for ESA Voyage 2050; 24 pages

arxiv created 2019/08/05 · arxiv updated 2019/08/07

Abstract

In this white paper, we recommend the European Space Agency plays a proactive role in developing a global collaborative effort to construct a large high-contrast imaging space telescope, e.g. as currently under study by NASA. Such a mission will be needed to characterize a sizable sample of temperate Earth-like planets in the habitable zones of nearby Sun-like stars and to search for extraterrestrial biological activity. We provide an overview of relevant European expertise, and advocate ESA to start a technology development program towards detecting life outside the Solar system.

Related

• The Search for Living Worlds and the Connection to Our Cosmic Origins
• Technology Needs for Detecting Life Beyond the Solar System: A White Paper in Support of the Astrobiology Science Strategy
• Report by the ESA-ESO Working Group on Extra-Solar Planets
• Life Beyond the Solar System: Remotely Detectable Biosignatures
• Detecting habitable exoplanet atmospheres with LIFE, the Large Interferometer for Exoplanets