Quickly jump to
Latest news
The LIFE All Hands Meeting 2024 was a dynamic gathering of researchers and collaborators, focused on advancing the goals of the LIFE initiative. Over two engaging sessions (November 21-22), participants shared updates, celebrated progress, and discussed future directions. Highlights included a comprehensive progress report, insights into the LIFE baseline design, and updates on recently funded … Continued
Floris van der Tak (SRON) & Tim Lichtenberg (U Groningen) have obtained funding for technical and system work for the optics of LIFE. The project includes a detailed optical design for LIFE, comparing various array configurations, and leading to tolerances on the quality of the various optical components. Additionally, existing work on hysteretic deformable mirrors … Continued
The fourtheenth paper of the LIFE series (Cesario et al. 2024) has recently been accepted in Astronomy and Astrophysics. In this paper, we explore the potential of the Large Interferometer for Exoplanets (LIFE) for finding terrestrial protoplanets in their magma ocean phase that can yield insights into the prebiotic atmospheric conditions of rocky exoplanets. We … Continued
The SRON team working on MKID detectors, led by Pieter de Visser, secured a grant from the Dutch national funding agency NWO to work on efficient MKID detectors for the LIFE wavelength range. The grant is for a 3 year postdoc and materials to demonstrate high effciency at mid-infrared wavelengths between 4 and 18.5 um, … Continued
The LIFE All Hands Meeting 2024 was a dynamic gathering of researchers and collaborators, focused on advancing the goals of the LIFE initiative. Over two engaging sessions (November 21-22), participants shared updates, celebrated progress, and discussed future directions. Highlights included a comprehensive progress report, insights into the LIFE baseline design, and updates on recently funded … Continued
Floris van der Tak (SRON) & Tim Lichtenberg (U Groningen) have obtained funding for technical and system work for the optics of LIFE. The project includes a detailed optical design for LIFE, comparing various array configurations, and leading to tolerances on the quality of the various optical components. Additionally, existing work on hysteretic deformable mirrors … Continued
The fourtheenth paper of the LIFE series (Cesario et al. 2024) has recently been accepted in Astronomy and Astrophysics. In this paper, we explore the potential of the Large Interferometer for Exoplanets (LIFE) for finding terrestrial protoplanets in their magma ocean phase that can yield insights into the prebiotic atmospheric conditions of rocky exoplanets. We … Continued
The SRON team working on MKID detectors, led by Pieter de Visser, secured a grant from the Dutch national funding agency NWO to work on efficient MKID detectors for the LIFE wavelength range. The grant is for a 3 year postdoc and materials to demonstrate high effciency at mid-infrared wavelengths between 4 and 18.5 um, … Continued
The first Dutch-Belgian LIFE Meeting in September 2024 saw lively discussions surrounding instrumentation and science talks. The goal of the meeting was to bring together the growing Belgian and Dutch LIFE communities. During the day the mission PI Sascha Quanz and Co-PI Adrian Glauser introduced the mission and current development, Tim Lichtenberg, Stefan Kraus, and … Continued
PI Leonid Pogorelyuk (RPI), and Co-I’s Kerri Cahoy (MIT), John Monnier (UMichigan), and Michael Shao (JPL) won a NASA-funded grant for a LIFE related technology project starting in September 2024. The “Compact Delay Line for Space Interferometry” project will demonstrate a 5 m delay line that fits within a 2U (20 cm x 10 cm) … Continued
In the thirteenth paper of the LIFE series, we explore the potential of two upcoming space missions, the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) and the Large Interferometer for Exoplanets (LIFE), in characterizing Earth-like exoplanets.
In the lead-up to the Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon) 2024 in Providence, RI, members of the Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE) team embarked on an exciting journey along the US East Coast. This trip provided a unique opportunity for the team to engage with esteemed colleagues and discuss the latest advancements in exoplanet research. The … Continued
The Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon) 2024, held in Providence, RI, from May 5-10, brought together leading scientists to discuss the latest advancements in the search for life beyond Earth. Among the notable contributions were those from members of the Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE) team, who presented several significant studies and updates on our mission. … Continued
LIFE paper XII – “The Detectability of Capstone Biosignatures in the Mid-Infrared — Sniffing Exoplanetary Laughing Gas and Methylated Halogens”, is accepted for publication in AJ and available on arXiv as of today. We hope that there is a little bit for everyone in this: a detailed review how these biospheres could form and why … Continued
In this paper, Matsuo et al. (arxiv link) propose a method for planet detection and characterization with LIFE, named “phase-space synthesis decomposition” (PSSD). PSSD focuses on the correlation of the planetary signal over the entire wavelength range instead of that along the baseline rotation, leading to the relaxation of the technical requirements on the signal … Continued
Out of the 259 known exoplanets within 20 parsec, LIFE’s reference configuration can detect 212 of them. Of these, 38 LIFE-detectable planets orbit in the habitable zone of their host star, including 13 low-mass planets with Mp<5M⊕.
The Biennial European Astrobiology Conference (BEACON) serves as a gathering point for scientists and experts in the Astrobiology field from Europe and beyond. During the latest conference, held on La Palma Island (Canary Islands, Spain) from May, 8th to 12th 2023, the LIFE Team made significant contributions, which we highlight here.
The Swiss government will contribute nearly three million euros to support the NICE (Nulling Interferometer Cryogenic Experiment) project as part of PRODEX (PROgramme de Développement d’EXpériences scientifiques), a European Space Agency (ESA) programme.
During this year’s general assembly of the Swiss National Competence Center for Research (NCCR) ‘PlanetS’, LIFE was featured at various occasions. On Monday during the main session Sascha Quanz pitched our concept as one of the possible future flagships of the Swiss space community. In the domain C meeting Eleonora Alei and Björn Konrad presented … Continued
he European Space Agency’s (ESA) PLANET ESLAB workshop was an exciting conference bridging between planetary and exoplanet science and an ideal occasion to advocate for LIFE and attract more supporters. For many LIFE team members it was the first opportunity to meet in person and discuss synergies between the various fields represented in our diverse team.
In Konrad et al. (https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.04727), the LIFE team studied different quality thermal emission spectra of cloudy Venus-twin exoplanet using Bayesian atmospheric retrievals. The goal of this study was to: test how the retrieval routine introduced in LIFE paper III performs for a realistic non-Earth-like MIR spectrum of a known planet, investigate how clouds impact can … Continued
Comets around other stars than the Sun – exocomets – have so far only been possible to discover indirectly, when they pass in front of their parent stars as seen from Earth. In a new study accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics, Janson et al. (arxiv) show that LIFE can be used to detect … Continued
Phosphine is a key molecule in the understanding of exotic chemistry of exoplanet atmospheres. While it has been detected in the Solar System’s giant planets, it has not been observed in exoplanets yet. In the exoplanetary context however it has been theorized as a potential biosignature molecule. Angerhausen et al. identified a representative set of scenarios for phosphine detections in exoplanetary atmospheres varying over the whole dynamic range of the LIFE mission.
In this paper, Hansen et al (arxiv) follows on their analysis of architectures from paper IV, this time delving into some of the practical and instrumental considerations of building a beam combiner. They present a possible five telescope combiner design based on the work of Guyon, 2013, consisting of a cascade of beam splitters and … Continued
Kammerer et al. (arXiv link) show that LIFE would also be a powerful mission to search for Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars. This is important because the true habitability of habitable zone (HZ) planets around M-dwarfs is still an open question and previous LIFE yield estimates had shown a strong preference for detections around M-dwarfs. … Continued
“What is life? Where, when and how did life arise on Earth? What ingredients were likely present and how were they delivered to Earth? Under what conditions is life possible and is life likely to exist on other planets or celestial bodies?” These and other questions are tackled by a group of world leading experts … Continued
Hansen et al. revisits the studies of configurations and architectures that were taken in the days of Darwin/TPF-I.
In Alei et al. 2022, the fifth paper of the LIFE series (link to arXiv) we explore the potential of LIFE for characterizing emission spectra of Earth at various stages of its evolution. Assuming a distance of 10 pc and a Sun-like host star, we simulated observations obtained with LIFE on eight different scenarios, which … Continued
On June 8th the LIFE team assembled for its spring/summer 2022 all-hands meeting. The initiative was able to welcome a number of new members and energize the community with exciting news about the successful LIFE paper series or the launch of the new LIFE brand.
On their trip between the Exoplanets 4 and the AbSciCon conferences, researchers from the LIFE initiatives met with colleagues on the US East Coast formeetings and presentations at the University of Maryland, the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the Space Telescope Science Institute.
During the general assembly of the National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) PlanetS in Grindelwald, Switzerland, LIFE team members Eleonora Alei and Björn Konrad presented their LIFE related research.
The first paper in the LIFE paper series was recently accepted for publication in A&A! Quanz et al. 2022 introduce the LIFE initiative and the motivation behind it and perform detection yield estimates for different scenarios and instrument parameters.
In Konrad et al. 2022, the LIFE team derived first constraints on the technical requirements for the LIFE telescope in wavelength coverage, spectral resolution, and signal-to-noise ratio.
In Dannert & Ottiger et al. 2022, the LIFE team describes the process of simulating a LIFE observation with the publicly available LIFEsim tool. We present our methods for signal simulation ( and the subsequent extraction of planets, finding that mid-IR nulling interferometry can indeed provide direct measurements of planetary radii, temperatures and astrometry.
The White Paper that we submitted to the ESA in the context of the Voyage 2050 process was published by “Experimental Astronomy”.
ESA announced their choice for future L-class science mission themes and the detection and characterization of temperate exoplanets is considered to be one of them!
Jens Kammerer is presenting a poster on behalf of the LIFE initiative at the STScI spring Symposium “Towards the Comprehensive Characterization of Exoplanets: Science at the Interface of Multiple Measurement Technique”
A number of virtual kick-off meetings were organized to define the various LIFE Teams and Working Groups.
LIFE Paper I entitled “Large Interferometer for Exoplanets (LIFE): I. Improved exoplanet detection yield estimates for a large mid-infrared space-interferometer mission” was submitted to A&A!
“LIFE workshop 3” was held online on Monday, November 30, and Tuesday, December 1, 2020. With more than 150 participants we achieved a new all-time high!
Two LIFE related talks were presented at EPSC 2020.
LIFE was presented at the NASA-sponsored interdisciplinary workshop Technoclimes.
The next LIFE workshop (III) will be held in Liège, Belgium from Monday November 30, 2020 (11 am) to Tuesday December 1, 2020 (5 pm). The registration can be found here.
The online “Virtual Mini-Workshop: LIFE – Large Interferometer For Exoplanets” on May 14 2020 attracted almost 200 participants.
LIFE was presented at BlueSciCon 2020 of Blue Marble Space Institute of Science on May 8.
The “Virtual Mini-Workshop: LIFE – Large Interferometer For Exoplanets” will introduce a larger audience to the LIFE concept and will be held fully online, on Thursday, 14 May 2020, 4.00–6.00 pm CEST. Registration is closed now.
NICE (Nulling Interferometric Cryogenic Experiment for LIFE) was kicked off.
LIFE was presented at a “Workshop on Innovative Technologies for Space Optics” at ESA/ESTEC on November 4.
The White Paper submitted to ESA in the context of the Voyage 2050 program was selected for presentation at the related ESA workshop in Madrid.
LIFE was presented at the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) 2019 in Geneva.
LIFE will be presented at an upcoming workshop at ESA on “Innovative Technologies for Space Optics”. The talk is scheduled for the session on ultrastable onto-mechanical architectures.
The dates for the 2nd LIFE workshop are fixed and the LIFE team submits their White Paper in response to ESA’s call for supporting the long-term planning of the Science Programme.
The LIFE presentation shown at AbSciCon2019 is available here.
An abstract submitted by the LIFE team to give a talk at the AbSciCon2019 conference was accepted!
ESA issued a Call for White Papers in the VOYAGE 2050 long-term planning of the ESA Science Programme.
In the context of the US decadal survey that is carried out to help assess and prioritize future NASA space missions several White Papers dealing with LIFE-related science and mission concepts were submitted.
LIFE workshop 1 successfully took place at DLR in Berlin/Adlershof.
A paper entitled “Space-based infrared interferometry to study exoplanet atmospheres” has just been published by Experimental Astronomy (click here for the final version).
A paper discussing the potential of several (future) instruments to directly detect young rocky planets undergoing a post-impact magma ocean phase was accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
The National Academy of Sciences published their “Exoplanet Science Strategy” report.
LIFE related papers from the SPIE conference are now available online. Please check out Quanz et al. (2018) and Defrere et al. (2018b).
LIFE was presented on a poster at the “Exoplanets 2” conference July 2-6, 2018, in Cambridge.
LIFE and related mission ideas were presented at the SPIE conference “Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation” in Austin/Texas, June 10-15, 2018.
LIFE was featured in a presentation at Caltech on the requirements for imaging and spectroscopy of habitable planets
A proposal to install an ISSI International Team further developing the science of LIFE and assessing the status of key technologies was submitted.
A new review paper by Defrere et al. about space-based interferometry for exoplanet science was submitted to Experimental Astronomy. The submitted version can be found here.
The science of LIFE was presented in a presentation at the European Planetary Science Congress held on September 17-22 in Riga, Latvia.
Life in the media
[SRF] «Derzeit werden erstmals Teleskope entwickelt, die darauf ausgelegt sind, systematisch nach Leben auf anderen Planeten zu suchen», erklärt Studien-Erstautor Daniel Angerhausen von der ETH Zürich der Nachrichtenagentur Keystone-SDA.
Dazu gehört das Teleskop «Life», das Forschende an der ETH Zürich planen. Die Weltraummission «Life» hat sich ein ehrgeiziges Ziel gesetzt: Sie soll eines Tages Hinweise auf Leben auf fernen Planeten nachweisen. Fünf Satelliten sollen dabei ein grosses Teleskop bilden, welches Planeten ausserhalb unseres Sonnensystems «scannt» und dabei ihre Atmosphäre untersucht.
[space.com] Still, Angerhausen and colleagues at ETH Zurich wanted to find out how much LIFE could tell us, even if it failed to find biosignatures. What would a negative or null result imply about the frequency of inhabited planets in the galaxy? For this, they turned to statistics.
The team employed a Bayesian statistical model to find the smallest number of exoplanets LIFE would need to observe to yield a firm answer as to how common inhabited worlds are.
[phys.org] “It’s not just about how many planets we observe—it’s about asking the right questions and how confident we can be in seeing or not seeing what we’re searching for,” says Angerhausen. “If we’re not careful and are overconfident in our abilities to identify life, even a large survey could lead to misleading results.” Such considerations are highly relevant to upcoming missions such as the international Large Interferometer for Exoplanets (LIFE) mission led by ETH Zurich. The goal of LIFE is to probe dozens of exoplanets similar in mass, radius, and temperature to Earth by studying their atmospheres for signs of water, oxygen, and even more complex biosignatures.
[BBC] Astronomers from ETH Zurich, a Swiss university, want to send four space telescopes to explore exo-planets even further away than Neptune, the planet furthest from the Sun.
They say their LIFE (Large Interferometer For Exoplanets) mission, would look at lots of Earth-like planets for signs of life like oxygen and water vapour.
[Scientific American] Upcoming or proposed missionslike NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) and ESA’s Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE) are meant to directly image, or take pictures of, potentially habitable worlds in order to measure their composition, map their surface or cloud tops and “sniff” their atmosphere for conspicuous chemical indicators of life. But finding suitable candidates to point these telescopes toward has proved a Herculean task, according to Weiss—and that could be HD 20794 d’s moment of stardom.
[Deutschlandfunk] Hoffnungen ruhen bereits auf der nächsten Teleskop-Generation. Das internationale Projekt „Large Interferometer for Exoplanets“, kurz LIFE, will die Europäische Raumfahrtagentur davon überzeugen, eine Art Kamera für ferne Exoplaneten zu bauen. Dafür sollen fünf Weltraumteleskope im All hunderte Meter voneinander entfernt in einer festen Formation fliegen.
[SRF] «Derzeit werden erstmals Teleskope entwickelt, die darauf ausgelegt sind, systematisch nach Leben auf anderen Planeten zu suchen», erklärt Studien-Erstautor Daniel Angerhausen von der ETH Zürich der Nachrichtenagentur Keystone-SDA.
Dazu gehört das Teleskop «Life», das Forschende an der ETH Zürich planen. Die Weltraummission «Life» hat sich ein ehrgeiziges Ziel gesetzt: Sie soll eines Tages Hinweise auf Leben auf fernen Planeten nachweisen. Fünf Satelliten sollen dabei ein grosses Teleskop bilden, welches Planeten ausserhalb unseres Sonnensystems «scannt» und dabei ihre Atmosphäre untersucht.
[space.com] Still, Angerhausen and colleagues at ETH Zurich wanted to find out how much LIFE could tell us, even if it failed to find biosignatures. What would a negative or null result imply about the frequency of inhabited planets in the galaxy? For this, they turned to statistics.
The team employed a Bayesian statistical model to find the smallest number of exoplanets LIFE would need to observe to yield a firm answer as to how common inhabited worlds are.
[phys.org] “It’s not just about how many planets we observe—it’s about asking the right questions and how confident we can be in seeing or not seeing what we’re searching for,” says Angerhausen. “If we’re not careful and are overconfident in our abilities to identify life, even a large survey could lead to misleading results.” Such considerations are highly relevant to upcoming missions such as the international Large Interferometer for Exoplanets (LIFE) mission led by ETH Zurich. The goal of LIFE is to probe dozens of exoplanets similar in mass, radius, and temperature to Earth by studying their atmospheres for signs of water, oxygen, and even more complex biosignatures.
[BBC] Astronomers from ETH Zurich, a Swiss university, want to send four space telescopes to explore exo-planets even further away than Neptune, the planet furthest from the Sun.
They say their LIFE (Large Interferometer For Exoplanets) mission, would look at lots of Earth-like planets for signs of life like oxygen and water vapour.
[Scientific American] Upcoming or proposed missionslike NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) and ESA’s Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE) are meant to directly image, or take pictures of, potentially habitable worlds in order to measure their composition, map their surface or cloud tops and “sniff” their atmosphere for conspicuous chemical indicators of life. But finding suitable candidates to point these telescopes toward has proved a Herculean task, according to Weiss—and that could be HD 20794 d’s moment of stardom.
[Deutschlandfunk] Hoffnungen ruhen bereits auf der nächsten Teleskop-Generation. Das internationale Projekt „Large Interferometer for Exoplanets“, kurz LIFE, will die Europäische Raumfahrtagentur davon überzeugen, eine Art Kamera für ferne Exoplaneten zu bauen. Dafür sollen fünf Weltraumteleskope im All hunderte Meter voneinander entfernt in einer festen Formation fliegen.
[universetoday] It’s up to the engineers and scientists designing [HWO] and [LIFE] to see if measuring D/H on exoplanets might be an achievable goal. What we can say, so far, is that looking for D/H from LIFE appears to be feasible for exoplanets with plenty of atmospheric water vapor in a region of the spectrum around 8 microns wavelength.
[innovationparkzurich] Die ETH Zürich treibt Innovationen in der Raumfahrtforschung voran, wie beispielsweise die Entwicklung des Large Interferometer for Exoplanets (LIFE). Ihre Beiträge zu bahnbrechenden Instrumenten, insbesondere dem MIRI-Instrument des James Webb Space Telescopes, sowie robotischen Plattformen wie Spacebok und SpaceHopper erweitern die Grenzen der Exploration.
[Tagesanzeiger] Der ETH-Professor Sascha Quanz sucht hauptberuflich nach ausserirdischem Leben. Dafür bereitet er von Zürich aus eine Weltraummission vor. Ist das genial oder verrückt?
[phys.org] The odds are good that we are not alone in the universe. We have found thousands of exoplanets so far, and there are likely billions of potentially habitable planets in our galaxy alone. But finding evidence of extraterrestrial life is challenging, and even the most powerful telescopes we currently have may not produce definitive proof.
[Der Standard] Im Gastblog beleuchtet der Physiker Manuel Scherf die komplexen Bedingungen für die Entstehung von Leben und zeigt, welche Rolle Rote Zwergsterne dabei spielen könnten – und welche Hindernisse überwunden werden müssen. Dabei werden auch zukünftige Missionen vorgestellt, die helfen könnten, Antworten auf die uralte Frage zu finden: Sind wir allein im Universum?
[Universe Today] With LIFE, the GHGs would be easier to see than other standard biosignatures like O2, O3, CH4, and N2O. “In contrast to biosignatures, many technosignatures may provide greater specificity (less “false positive” potential), as many putative technosignatures have more limited abiotic formation channels when compared to biosignatures,” the authors explain in their research. […] This is not a futuristic scenario awaiting the development of new technology. We have the capability to do this soon, according to Daniel Angerhausen: “Our thought experiment shows how powerful our next-generation telescopes will be. We are the first generation in history that has the technology to systematically look for life and intelligence in our galactic neighborhood.”
[Space.com] After conducting a fair bit of research, scientists have come to a conclusion that may sound redundant: Life could exist on Earth.
Of course, you’re probably thinking “Well, duh.” In fact, it may feel more accurate to say that life does exist on Earth — not simply that it could. But here’s the thing. The team’s conclusion isn’t the focus of the research. It’s merely a means to an end. The plot of this story, rather, lies in precisely why these scientists reached the result.
[Phys.org] Physicists at ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich wanted to know whether the planned LIFE space mission could really detect traces of life on other planets. Yes, it can, say the researchers, with the help of observations of our own planet.
[Universe Today]We know that there are thousands of exoplanets out there, with many millions more waiting to be discovered. But the vast majority of exoplanets are simply uninhabitable. For the few that may be habitable, we can only determine if they are by examining their atmospheres. LIFE, the Large Interferometer for Exoplanets, can help.
[The Universe] Scientists have great news: there really is life on Earth. This is not a joke, but the result of an important study for the search for life in the universe. The American-European scientific team has confirmed the suitability of the Earth for life experimentally, using a model of a future space telescope, which they plan to launch into space to search for exoplanets like ours. The project was named LIFE (Large Interferometer For Exoplanets).
[The Debrief] A team of researchers from ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich has recently published a study that could significantly advance our ability to detect extraterrestrial life on exoplanets, with Earth serving as the guinea pig.
Published in The Astrophysical Journal, their work focuses on the Large Interferometer for Exoplanets (LIFE) space mission and its potential to characterize the habitability of exoplanets by observing Earth as a test object.
[Futurism] We have some truly epic news. There is indeed life on Earth.
A team of American and European scientists have confirmed this not-so-surprising observation after they simulated the workings of a proposed space telescope, and then focused the telescope on Earth, treating it like a distant exoplanet to see if the instrument could pick up evidence of life.
[India.com] According to recent study, planed LIFE mission would be able to find signs of on Exoplanets by using by using Earth as a test subject. Details here.
[NZZ] Um die lichtschwachen Planeten dennoch aufnehmen zu können, muss man tricksen. Die ETH-Forscher um Sascha Quanz möchten es mit einem sogenannten Interferometer versuchen. Die Grundidee ist, das Licht von mehreren Teleskopen zu kombinieren. Die Lichtsignale werden so überlagert, dass das Licht des Sterns sich gegenseitig auslöscht, das Licht des Planeten aber nicht. Ihre Mission nennen die Astrophysiker Life, das steht für Large Interferometer for Exoplanets und gleichzeitig für das Hauptziel der Mission: Leben entdecken.
[BBC] Future telescopes, like the Habitable Worlds Observatory and a European proposal called Life, will then try to perform this same analysis for true Earth-analogue planets around stars like our Sun. “The driving planetary class will be rocky planets in the habitable zone,” says Sascha Quanz, an astrophysicist at ETH Zürich in Switzerland who leads the Life program.
[BBC Science Focus] The next generation of space observatories have life on other planets firmly in their sights.
[Tagesanzeiger] Der Genfer Nobelpreisträger Didier Queloz sucht das Weltall mit anderen Schweizer Forschenden nach Lebenszeichen ab. Nicht alle Astronomen sind so zuversichtlich wie er.
[ETH press release] With a constellation of five satellites, the international LIFE initiative led by ETH Zurich hopes to one day detect traces of life on exoplanets. A laboratory experiment in the Department of Physics is now set to demonstrate the planned measurement method.
[earthsky.org]The two new planets – GJ 1002b and GJ 1002c – orbit the red dwarf star GJ 1002, less than 16 light-years from Earth. That is very close in terms of stellar distances. Both planets have masses similar to Earth and orbit within the star’s habitable zone. That is the region around a star where temperatures could allow liquid water to exist on rocky planets. […] In the future, the LIFE (Large Interferometer For Exoplanets) mission should also be able to study these planets more closely. LIFE is currently in a first-study phase.
[Forbes] These days almost every other week, there’s a new media flap about some newly discovered potentially habitable planet orbiting a nearby star. Trouble is, most of these exoplanet detections are indirect and researchers end up speculating about their mass, their makeup, their atmospheric compositions and whether they could ever harbor life.
But a group of planetary scientists and astrophysicists, led by a professor at ETH Zurich, has largely resurrected an idea for a flotilla of optically linked, free-flying mid-infrared telescopes that could find heretofore undiscovered earth mass planets in their star’s habitable zone.
[Der Bund, CH] Spacex-Chef Elon Musk hat eine Vision: Der Mensch soll den Mars besiedeln. Auf dem Weg dahin sind entsprechende Verkehrsmittel gefragt – eine Rakete etwa, die 100 Personen transportieren soll. Und auch die Nasa schmiedet Pläne.[…] Glauser erwähnt in diesem Zusammenhang das Large Interferometer for Exoplanets (Life), das an der ETH Zürich verfolgt wird.
[Daily Beast] Using new instruments—including NASA’s $10-billion James Webb Space Telescope as well as the Large Interferometer for Exoplanets, a probe in development in Europe—it’s possible to survey the atmospheres of distant exoplanets far beyond our own solar system.
[Popular Science] The Large Interferometer for Exoplanets could chase new exoplanets and galaxies with a fleet of tools—if it ever gets off the ground.
[National Geographic, Indonesia] Kelak, interferometer nulling akan digunakan lewat LIFE, singkatan dari Large Interferometer for Exoplanets. Orang yang mengupayakannya terwujud adalah Sacha Quanz, astrofisikawan di Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich, Swiss.
[Pantip, Thailand] ด้วยภารกิจ “LIFE” (Large Interferometer For Exoplanets) แนวคิดเกี่ยวกับภารกิจอวกาศที่มีความทะเยอทะยานพร้อมความสามารถทางวิทยาศาสตร์ที่ไม่มีใครเทียบได้ ซึ่งจะได้รับการปรับให้เหมาะสมสำหรับการตรวจจับโดยตรง และการกำหนดลักษณะบรรยากาศของดาวเคราะห์นอกระบบหลายร้อยดวงได้ โดย LIFE ได้นำเสนอเทคโนโลยีใหม่สำหรับการตรวจจับดาวเคราะห์นอกระบบด้วย mid-IR interferometers แบบ Nulling Interferometer หลักการคือการสร้าง “จุดบอด” เสมือนจริงในตำแหน่งที่แน่นอนของแหล่งกำเนิดแสงที่เป็นดาวฤกษ์ เพื่อที่จะเปิดเผยแหล่งกำเนิดแสงที่สลัวกว่า ซึ่งเป็นดาวเคราะห์ที่โคจรรอบมัน
[Blick, CH] Alf, E.T. oder Independence Day – Aliens kennt jeder aus Filmen und Serien. Doch die Wissenschaft beschäftigt sich mittlerweile ganz ernsthaft damit, Spuren von ausserirdischem Leben auf fernen Planeten aufzuspüren – und Schweizer Forscher sind vorne mit dabei.
[Innovation News] ETH Zurich’s Professor Sascha P Quanz explores the future exoplanet missions that will search for life beyond our Solar System.
[Physics today] Nulling interferometry draws aside bright stellar glare to probe fine dust in extrasolar systems that may hamper future searches for Earthlike worlds.
[Canberra Times] Jonah Hansen, LIFE team member and PhD student specialising in space interferometry at Mount Stromlo Observatory, at the Australian National University summarizes the LIFE mission concept for the Canberra Times.
[Innovation news network] Coordinated by ETH Zurich, the European LIFE mission is seeking to characterise the atmospheric composition of hundreds of nearby exoplanets to discover if life on exoplanets can exist beyond our Solar System.
[Science.org] Themes for billion-euro Voyage 2050 missions include icy moons, exoplanets, and the early universe.
[Science.org] The biggest space missions gestate for the longest time. Today, the European Space Agency (ESA) revealed the three broad science themes it wants to pursue for large-scale missions of €1 billion or more that would launch between 2035 and 2050.
[Sonntagszeitung] Vier Wissenschaftler, darunter der Schweizer Nobelpreisträger Didier Queloz, geben Auskunft über Sinn und Zweck des neuen «Zentrums für den Ursprung und die Verbreitung von Leben» an der ETH Zürich.
[Innovation News Network] LIFE – a future space mission to characterise the atmospheres of terrestrial exoplanets and search for life outside the Solar System.
[University of Bern magazine UniPress] Kevin Heng, Christophe Lovis und Sascha Quanz erforschen weitentfernte Planeten in anderen Sonnensystemen. Unter anderem sind sie auf der Suche nach Leben. Dabei wandeln sie immer an der Grenze des Machbaren. Eine Begegnung.
[de Volkskrant paper in the Netherlands) An article about an online conference of the Dutch Origins Center.
[Neue Zuericher Zeitung NZZ] LIFE is mentioned in an article about SETI-research.
[bluewin.ch article] In der Milchstrasse könnte es gut drei Dutzend intelligente Zivilisationen geben, glauben britische Forscher. Ein Astrophysiker der ETH Zürich setzt allerdings ein Fragezeichen hinter solche Schätzungen.
[The Observer (external newsletter of the Swiss NCCR PlanetS)] The “LIFE” mission, proposed by PlanetS researchers, could help answer questions about the habitability of our cosmic environment by employing a direct approach.
[Exocast podcast] In America, WFIRST has been renamed the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope in honour to the pioneering “Mother Hubble”, while in Europe the LIFE mission kicked off.
[Deutschlandfunk Radio ‘Echtzeit’] One topic, four facets: Today we deal with the universe in real time – something that not only fascinates science fiction fans, but also astrophysicists, architects and techno musicians. When will we really take off?
Once a month, SAGANet (www.saganet.org) and the NASA Astrobiology Program host a program called “Ask an Astrobiologist”, where the public is invited to interact with a high-profile astrobiologist, who replies to Twitter, Facebook, and chat questions live on video.
[Centauri Dreams post] Among the discoveries announced at the recent meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Hawaii was TOI 700 d, a planet potentially in the habitable zone of its star. TOI stands for TESS Object of Interest, reminding us that this is the first Earth-size planet the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite has uncovered in its data whose orbit would allow the presence of liquid water on the surface.
[Medium article, also NCCR PlanetS press release] Planets start out with a bang. During the last stage of planet formation, planetary embryos collide with other protoplanets, causing their surfaces and mantles to extensively melt. Will it be possible to directly image such molten protoplanets with future telescopes?
[Swiss online magazine Le Temps] In 2007 the DARWIN project for observing Earth-sized exoplanets by a group of interferometric space telescopes was abandoned by its promoter, the ESA. Today researchers from ETH Zürich are highlighting the interest of resuming a comparable project, given the observations accumulated by the Kepler mission.
[Article in The Observer (external newsletter of the Swiss NCCR PlanetS)] The characterization of habitable or even inhabited exoplanets is one of the ultimate goals of modern astrophysics. Reviving the concept of a space mission that was cancelled ten years ago would be most promising.