Darwin (space telescope)

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Darwin was the study of a space experiment planned for 2015 by the European Space Agency to observe Earth-like exoplanets and look for signs of life on them. It is named after Charles Darwin . Like its namesake, the Darwin Mission was supposed to search for the "origins of life". The concept envisaged a smaller number of satellites that would together form a very large interferometer in space. This study was discontinued in 2007.

Details

Darwin was planned as a complex system consisting of several satellites in precise formation flight. The early plans included eight satellites. According to the latest planning status, the mission should consist of four individual satellites. Three should each carry an infrared telescope with a 3–4 m primary mirror diameter, similar to the Herschel Space Observatory . The signals from these telescopes should be combined for the observation of planets close to their much brighter central stars according to the principle of the nulling interferometer . This interference would have occurred on the central fourth satellite. To do this, the spacing of the satellites would have to be precisely controlled to a fraction of the wavelength used.

Darwin should work in the infrared range around 10 µm wavelength for several reasons . In infrared light, the difference in brightness between an Earth-like planet and its central star is smaller than in visible light, but the star is still around a million times brighter. In addition, infrared spectroscopy can be used to search for gases such as oxygen ( detected as ozone ), water vapor , carbon dioxide or methane in the atmosphere of the discovered planets . The appearance of these gases in certain combinations indicates that living beings are influencing the atmosphere .

Darwin would not have made his way to his operation point, the 2nd Lagrange point (L2) of the sun-earth system, before 2015  , because his new technologies should first be tested by LISA Pathfinder (formerly SMART-2). Darwin was in agreement with the now also set Planet Finder Terrestrial of NASA planned.

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