Carl Sagan described Earth as viewed from space as a pale blue dot, and our first direct images of light-years distant planets will be just as minuscule. When new mega-telescopes capture their first pictures of exoplanets, we will at best see half pixels of grayish blur. Even so, investigators eager to learn whether any exoplanets harbor life might be able to find hints in those first fuzzy images. First, however, they will need to know what biosignatures would look like in data coming from worlds very different from our own.
Many teams are now focusing on finding answers. The latest entrant is Cornell’s Institute for Pale Blue Dots, officially launching on May 9 (and also just renamed the Carl Sagan Institute). The institute has been working to create a database of "fingerprints" for life that could be discerned in the light reaching telescopes from exoplanets.
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