Countdown to the search for an Earth clone

Space agencies begin the countdown to find a clone of Earth. The ambitious project, piloted by NASA, involves more than 1,000 scientists and engineers. The mission focuses on searching for signs of life on planets orbiting other stars.

The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) will giant telescope designed to look for these signs of life. Although its launch to the site from which it will scan space is scheduled for the end of the next decade, the sophisticated scientific and technological base required for a mission of such characteristics has already begun to be built.

The observatory, according to NASA, will provide powerful opportunities for making astrophysical discoveries. from the solar system’s backyard to the farthest Universe. Based on knowledge from several previous space missions, this one was specifically designed for identify potentially habitable planets

around other stars, closely studying their atmospheres to determine whether life is possible.

The goal is to identify and obtain direct images of at least 25 potentially habitable worlds and the use of modern technology – such as spectroscopy – to try to find chemical “biosignatures” in their atmospheres, including gases such as oxygen or methanewhich could become fundamental proof of the existence of life.

The first step was the implementation Science, Technology and Architecture Review Group (START, in English), in which more 1000 researchers and engineers from all over the world.

In the footsteps of Hubble and James Webb

On a mission led Pot the Japanese joined JAXA, Canadian CSA and the European Space Agency (ESA), who has already appointed three researchers who will join this team, from which they will coordinate the efforts of the academic world and industry in a project that follows other very landmark projects –like the Hubble telescopes or James Webb–

Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Director of the Space Astronomy Research Group at the Complutense University of Madrid will join this multidisciplinary team representing ESA. Ana Ines Gomez de Castro; David Mouillet from the Institute of Planetology and Astrophysics of the University of Grenoble (France); And Michael Minfrom the Netherlands Institute for Space Research.

HWO’s mission will continue over the next few years, trying to identify the best candidates capable of harboring some signs of life. Near one of the most ambitious scientific and technological projects of recent decades. The space observatory will also include instruments to study the chemical evolution of the Universe or the formation of planetary systems with unprecedented resolution and sensitivity.

Getting closer to finding life

Gómez de Castro explained to EFE that we are talking about searching “Earth clone” and find planets that, in terms of atmosphere, vegetation or oceans, could support life, that were literally “inhabited” and so find molecules of oxygen, ammonia, methane or water this indicated that it was a system similar to that of Earth.

Is man getting closer to finding life in other places? After many decades of space exploration and thanks to the development of modern and emerging technologies, the professor answers categorically: yes; but also that, although this is the main goal of the mission, the science, knowledge and industry that will be invested in this project will allow us to study the distribution of dark matter or the origin of galaxies at unknown levels.

Over the next few years, scientists around the world will identify the specific science they want to know and measure before the necessary tools are determined and industry begins to build them.

They are looking for a “clone” of Earth

So it will be a mission that will last for many years, as it was conceived by the US Academy of Sciences and accepted by NASA before its launch at the end of the next decade, but Gomez de Castro has no doubt that it will be “historic” thanks to knowledge, engineering, technology and the funding it will require.

And although she has participated in numerous space projects and missions during her long academic career, the professor does not hide the excitement she causes. the possibility of finding a “clone” of Earth. “Imagine seeing the first image of this little blue dot that looks like our Earth, and seeing it orbiting another star.”

At the moment, space agencies do not have the necessary technologies and instruments for this, although they are convinced that they will have them in a timely manner, and among the main tasks of the mission they call the need to develop an optical system capable of “covering” a star that can be 100 millions of times brighter than another object (potentially habitable world) next to it. “And we will definitely get it.”