spaceships

We want to find planets with life beyond the Earthbut let’s be honest: we don’t have the best instruments to achieve it. The space telescopes we have today are not sufficiently capable of taking precise photographs of exoplanets and, in the process, analyzing possible biosignatures in their atmosphere. The James Webb Space Telescope, possibly the most powerful today, has made some progressbut it still falls short. Therefore, a team of scientists from the WM Keck Institute for the Study of Space has proposed a curious solution: send a swarm of telescopes to study the cosmos with a magnifying glass that we have not been able to use until now. The requirements. There are two main problems why exoplanets are so difficult to analyze. The first is that they are very close to their star, which is usually millions to billions of times brighter than they are. The second is that they are very small, so telescopes large enough to take images with adequate resolution are needed. That is precisely the main handicap of James Webb. It lacks size. And the truth is that it would be difficult to make a telescope so large as to achieve the desired resolution. One cannot be, but several small ones can. The proposal of these astronomers It is to launch a swarm of many small ships that concentrate and send light to a kind of mother ship. This is what carries out the optical tricks necessary to block the light from the main star and, in the process, analyze the planet’s thermal signature with more precision. What is this thermal signature? To solve the starlight problem, coronagraphs can be used. These are instruments that block the star’s light, generating something similar to an eclipse. Thus, only the light reflected from the exoplanet can be measured. It will be the mission of the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO)a large telescope that NASA will launch in the 2040s as a successor to Hubble, since it works in ultraviolet and visible light. The point is that, rather than the reflected light, it would be ideal to measure the direct light that exoplanets thermally emit. This is done by measuring in the mid-infrared. The James Webb is capable of doing it; but, as we have already seen, it is too small. That’s where the swarm named Large Interferometer for Exoplanets (LIFE) comes into play. Being a swarm of small ships, it acts like a very large ship. Biosignatures. Something good about measuring in the mid-infrared is that you can also detect emissions derived from substances associated with life, such as ozone, methane, water, carbon dioxide or phosphine. That means LIFE can not only take a more accurate photo of exoplanets. You can also check if they are alive. The name fits like a glove. Fallen soldiers and teamwork. NASA’s Terrestrial Planet Locator Interferometer and ESA’s Darwin mission followed a similar concept to LIFE. However, they have ended up being abandoned after encountering one technical obstacle after another. On the other hand, LIFE engineers hope to be able to advance as technology does, so as not to stop at any time. If all goes well, it is expected to be launched in the 2040s, just like the HWO. The objective is for both to work as a team, since one works in the mid-infrared and the other in the visible and ultraviolet. Even if they analyze the same thing, they do it using different methods, so one will be able to eliminate the other’s false positives. They are the team perfect. Images | Magnific/NASA In Xataka | TRAPPIST-1 was the most promising solar system to search for life. Now our joy is in a well