Technology planned for “Life” space mission discovers traces of life
Published: Monday, Feb 26th 2024, 14:40
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According to a new study, the technology planned for the future "Life" space mission is suitable for discovering life-friendly planets. It was tested on Earth - with an unsurprising result: life is possible on Earth.
For the study published on Monday in The Astrophysical Journal, the researchers from the University of Zurich (UZH) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich) considered the Earth to be an exoplanet that is around 30 light years away from the object of observation.
This enabled the team to detect concentrations of the atmospheric gases CO2, water, ozone and methane in the infrared spectra of the Earth's atmosphere. They also identified surface conditions that favor the occurrence of water.
This is encouraging, ETH Zurich wrote in a press release on Monday. If a space telescope like Life were to observe planet Earth, it would find evidence of a habitable world.
With the "Life" mission led by ETH Zurich, researchers want to detect traces of life on exoplanets with a network of five satellites. Life stands for "Large Interferometer for Exoplanets".
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