Large Interferometer For Exoplanets
A space mission designed to search for life outside the solar system and investigate the diversity of other worlds.
About our mission
The search for life beyond our solar system starts here
We inspire and unite humankind in the way we perceive ourselves and our home planet Earth. We encourage current and future generations to pursue bold visions. We embrace scientific and technological challenges, question established mindsets, and pioneer new ways of collaborations. We develop and implement the first dedicated and most powerful space mission to find life beyond the Solar System and investigate the diversity of other worlds.
Our technology
Collector
The collector spacecrafts are the primary light-gathering elements of the LIFE interferometer. Each spacecraft captures infrared light from a target stellar system and precisely guides it to the combiner. Rather than acting as independent telescopes, the collectors work together as a coordinated array, maintaining exact relative positions in formation flight. This allows the system to sample light across a large baseline, effectively achieving the resolving power of a telescope of the size of hundreds of meters.
Combiner
The combiner spacecraft is the central element of the LIFE interferometer, where light from the collector spacecrafts is precisely steered, stabilized, and interferometrically mixed. By adjusting the optical path lengths with extreme accuracy, the combiner enables nulling interferometry—a technique that causes the light from the central star to effectively cancel out. At the same time, light from orbiting exoplanets is preserved and can be detected. This allows LIFE to isolate faint planetary signals and analyze their infrared spectra, providing insights into atmospheric composition and signs of biological activities.
Characterizing Exoplanets
Earth-like exoplanets
LIFE is designed to measure the atmospheric composition of dozens of temperate terrestrial exoplanets and investigate if they contain molecules that match the presence of biological activity.
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