[en] 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. <P />
Disciplines :
Space science, astronomy & astrophysics
Author, co-author :
Snellen, Ignas
Albrecht, Simon
Anglada-Escude, Guillem
Baraffe, Isabelle
Baudoz, Pierre
Benz, Willy
Beuzit, Jean-Luc
Biller, Beth
Birkby, Jayne
Boccaletti, Anthony
van Boekel, Roy
de Boer, Jos
Brogi, Matteo
Buchhave, Lars
Carone, Ludmila
Claire, Mark
Claudi, Riccardo
Demory, Brice-Olivier
Desert, Jean-Michel
Desidera, Silvano
Gaudi, Scott
Gratton, Raffaele
Gillon, Michaël ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département d'astrophys., géophysique et océanographie (AGO) > Exotic
Grenfell, John Lee
Guyon, Olivier
Henning, Thomas
Hinkley, Sasha
Huby, Elsa
Janson, Markus
Helling, Christiane
Heng, Kevin
Kasper, Markus
Keller, Christoph
Kenworthy, Matthew
Krause, Oliver
Kreidberg, Laura
Madhusudhan, Nikku
Lagrange, Anne-Marie
Launhardt, Ralf
Lenton, Tim
Lopez-Puertas, Manuel
Maire, Anne-Lise ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département d'astrophys., géophysique et océanographie (AGO) > PSILab
