In Chile, the European Southern Observatory ESO is building the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) with a mirror diameter of 39 meters. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada/Ace Consortium
A series of new papers, that lay out strategies to search for signs of life beyond our solar system, assume that the detection of atmospheric signatures of a few potentially habitable planets may possibly come before 2030. Three years ago, NASA has gathered researchers from around the world to support and accelerate techniques to answer the question: Are we alone? Russell Deitrick and Daniel Angerhausen of the University of Bern are part of this international network that has now produced a comprehensive series of papers outlining the research on how to search for signs of life on extrasolar planets outside our solar system. Since we are currently unable to visit exoplanets, scientists must use telescopes to remotely examine them for so-called biosignatures. Deitrick and Angerhausen, astrophysicists at the Center for Space and Habitability (CSH) and NCCR PlanetS at the University of Bern, co-authored an article that discusses the existing and future telescopes, both ground-based and space-based. The review is now published in the June 2018 issue of the journal Astrobiology. "Detecting life is such a daunting challenge," says Russell Deitrick: "Just about every day I go from hopeful to cynical and back again." He thinks that the next decade will mainly be focused on improving the understanding of exoplanets in general and life on Earth. "It is potentially in the decade after when we get telescopes and new technologies that will really have a shot of detecting potential biosignatures," he summarizes.
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