A team of researchers from ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich has recently published a study that could significantly advance our ability to detect extraterrestrial life on exoplanets, with Earth serving as the guinea pig.
Published in The Astrophysical Journal, their work focuses on the Large Interferometer for Exoplanets (LIFE) space mission and its potential to characterize the habitability of exoplanets by observing Earth as a test object.
The Large Interferometer for Exoplanets (LIFE) is a proposed space mission designed to directly measure the mid-infrared spectrum of terrestrial habitable zone exoplanets. Using a collection of small orbiting telescopes, the mission would characterize the atmospheres of these exoplanets, assess their potential habitability, and search for signs of extraterrestrial life beyond our solar system.
With hopes that these space-based telescopes would one day be built, the researchers aimed to validate the LIFE mission’s ability to detect signs of life on exoplanets. Using Earth as a proxy, they proposed simulating how LIFE would observe an exoplanet.
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