The Darwin Project

Abstract

Angel and co-workers have proposed to detect exoplanets around nearby stars in the infrared (6–17 μm) and to analyze their spectra, searching for H₂O, CO₂, CH₄, NH₃, and O₃ spectral features. The presence or absence of CO₂ would indicate either a strong similarity or difference with Solar telluric planet atmospheres. Water would indicate a habitable planet, and O₃ would reveal significant photosynthesis activity, due to the presence of carbon chemistry based life. Like these authors, we suggest an infrared nulling interferometer pointing to the star and working as a coronograph. Our main contribution is to propose an observatory made of four to five 1-meter class telescopes observing from about 4 to 5 AU to avoid the Solar Zodiacal Light (ZL) background at 10 μm instead of four 8-meter ones observing from the Earth vicinity. This allows the mission to be feasible in the near future. The concept, named DARWIN, is under consideration by the European Space Agency for its Horizon 2000 Plus program.