ESA Voyage 2050 White Paper: Detecting life outside our solar system with a large high-contrast-imaging mission

Ignas Snellen , Simon Albrecht , Guillem Anglada-Escudé (1) , Isabelle Baraffe (2) , Pierre Baudoz (3) , Willy Benz (4) , Jean-Luc Beuzit , Beth Biller (5) , Jayne Birkby , Anthony Boccaletti (6) , Roy van Boekel (5) , Jos de Boer , Matteo Brogi , Lars Buchhave (7) , Ludmila Carone (5) , Mark Claire (8) , Riccardo Claudi (9) , Brice-Olivier Demory (10) , Jean-Michel Désert (11) , Silvano Desidera (9) , Scott Gaudi , Raffaele Gratton (9) , Michael Gillon (12) , John Lee Grenfell (13) , Olivier Guyon (14) , Thomas Henning (5) , Sasha Hinkley (15) , Elsa Huby (16) , Markus Janson (5) , Christiane Helling (17) , Kevin Heng (10) , Markus Kasper (18) , Christoph Keller , Matthew Kenworthy (19) , Oliver Krause , Laura Kreidberg (20) , Nikku Madhusudhan (21) , Anne-Marie Lagrange , Ralf Launhardt (5) , Tim Lenton , Manuel López-Puertas (22) , Anne-Lise Maire (16) , Nathan Mayne (15) , Victoria Meadows (23) , Bertrand Mennesson , Giuseppina Micela (24) , Yamila Miguel , Julien Milli (25) , Michiel Min , Ernst de Mooij , David Mouillet (26) , Mamadou N'Diaye , Valentina d'Orazi (9) , Enric Palle , Isabella Pagano , Giampaolo Piotto , Didier Queloz (27) , Heike Rauer (28) , Ignasi Ribas (29) , Garreth Ruane (30) , Franck Selsis (31) , Frans Snik , Alessandro Sozzetti , Daphne Stam (32) , Christopher Stark , Arthur Vigan (33) , Pieter de Visser

1 QMUL - Queen Mary University of London
2 CRAL - Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon
3 LESIA (UMR_8109) - Laboratoire d'études spatiales et d'instrumentation en astrophysique
4 Physikalisches Institut [Bern]
5 MPIA - Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie
6 CdF (institution) - Collège de France
7 NBI - Niels Bohr Institute [Copenhagen]
8 School of Environmental and Life Sciences
9 OAPD - INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova
10 UNIBE - Universität Bern / University of Bern
11 IAP - Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris
12 Institut d'Astrophysique et de Géophysique [Liège]
13 Extrasolare Planeten und Atmosphären [Berlin]
14 SFL-ENSMSE - Département Sciences de la Fabrication et Logistique
15 School of Physics and Astronomy [Exeter]
16 LESIA - Laboratoire d'études spatiales et d'instrumentation en astrophysique
17 SUPA School of Physics and Astronomy [University of St Andrews]
18 ESO - European Southern Observatory
19 Leiden Observatory [Leiden]
20 CfA - Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
21 Institute of Astronomy [Cambridge]
22 Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucı'a-CSIC
23 Spitzer Science Center
24 OAPa - INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo
25 ESO - European Southern Observatory [Santiago]
26 LATT - Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de l'Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées
27 ObsGE - Observatoire Astronomique de l'Université de Genève
28 DLR Institut für Planetenforschung
29 Dpto. de Organización de Empresas, Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería Industrial de Barcelona
30 Caltech Department of Astronomy [Pasadena]
31 ECLIPSE 2019
32 Faculty of Aerospace Engineering [Delft]
33 LAM - Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille

In this white paper, we recommend the European Space Agency plays a proactive role in developing a global collaborative effort to construct a large high-contrast imaging space telescope, e.g. as currently under study by NASA. Such a mission will be needed to characterize a sizable sample of temperate Earth-like planets in the habitable zones of nearby Sun-like stars and to search for extraterrestrial biological activity. We provide an overview of relevant European expertise, and advocate ESA to start a technology development program towards detecting life outside the Solar system.

Mots clés: Astrophysics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics

Domaines: Planétologie et astrophysique de la terre [astro-ph.EP]

Ignas Snellen, Simon Albrecht, Guillem Anglada-Escudé, Isabelle Baraffe, Pierre Baudoz, et al.. ESA Voyage 2050 White Paper: Detecting life outside our solar system with a large high-contrast-imaging mission. 2019. ⟨hal-02282393⟩