Detecting life outside our solar system with a large high-contrast-imaging mission
Abstract
In this White Paper, which was submitted in response to the European Space Agency (ESA) Voyage 2050 Call, we recommend the ESA 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.
Citation
Snellen , I A G , Snik , F , Kenworthy , M , Albrecht , S , Anglada-Escudé , G , Baraffe , I , Baudoz , P , Benz , W , Beuzit , J-L , Biller , B , Birkby , J L , Boccaletti , A , van Boekel , R , de Boer , J , Brogi , M , Buchhave , L , Carone , L , Claire , M , Claudi , R , Demory , B-O , Désert , J-M , Desidera , S , Gaudi , B S , Gratton , R , Gillon , M , Grenfell , J L , Guyon , O , Henning , T , Hinkley , S , Huby , E , Janson , M , Helling , C , Heng , K , Kasper , M , Keller , C U , Krause , O , Kreidberg , L , Madhusudhan , N , Lagrange , A-M , Launhardt , R , Lenton , T M , Lopez-Puertas , M , Maire , A-L , Mayne , N , Meadows , V , Mennesson , B , Micela , G , Miguel , Y , Milli , J , Min , M , de Mooij , E , Mouillet , D , N’Diaye , M , D’Orazi , V , Palle , E , Pagano , I , Piotto , G , Queloz , D , Rauer , H , Ribas , I , Ruane , G , Selsis , F , Sozzetti , A , Stam , D , Stark , C C , Vigan , A & de Visser , P 2022 , ' Detecting life outside our solar system with a large high-contrast-imaging mission ' , Experimental Astronomy , vol. 54 , pp. 1237-1274 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s10686-021-09803-y
Publication
Experimental Astronomy
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1572-9508Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © The Author(s) 2021. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
Description
Funding: I.S. acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 694513. A.L.M. acknowledges the financial support of the F.R.S.-FNRS through a postdoctoral researcher grant. MB acknowledges support from the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) research grant ST/S000631/1. I.R. acknowledges support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and the European Regional Development Fund through grant PGC2018-098153-B-C33, as well as the support of the Generalitat de Catalunya/CERCA programme. E.P. acknowledges support from the Spanish Ministry of Science through grant PGC2018-098153-B-C31. J.M.D. acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Unions Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 679633; Exo-Atmos) Part of this research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The authors acknowledge financial support from the ASI-INAF agreement n.2018-16-HH.0 They also acknowledge financial support from Spanish MCIU SEV-2017-0709 and PID2019-110689RB-I00 awards. The authors acknowledge financial support from the ASI-INAF agreement n.2018-16-HH.0 AV acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 757561). KH acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 771620). NJM acknowledges funding from the Leverhulme Trust, and a Science and Technology Facilities Council Consolidated Grant (ST/R000395/1). PdV acknowledges funding from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research NWO (Veni Grant No. 639.041.750). IP acknowledges financial support from the ASI-INAF agreements 2019-29-HH.06-HH.0 and 2015-019-R.1-2018. FS acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 678194; FALCONER). MJ acknowledges support from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg foundation (KAW). JLB acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 805445. T.H. acknowledges support from the European Research Council under the Horizon 2020 Framework Program via the ERC Advanced Grant Origins 83 24 28.Collections
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