An astrophysicist predicted that humans would have the ability to detect life on planets outside of the solar system in about a quarter of a century.
The discovery of other planets outside of the solar system was made in 1995, and in the nearly three decades since, more than 5,000 exoplanets have been discovered, according to Sascha Quanz, an astrophysicist at Switzerland’s federal technology institute ETH Zurich.
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“What we do not know is if these terrestrial planets have atmospheres and what these atmospheres are made of,” Quanz said. “We need to investigate the atmospheres of these planets. We need an observational approach that would allow us to take pictures of these planets.”
The 25-year time frame to discover life outside of the solar system is ambitious, Quanz added, but not “unrealistic.” Many of the planets are at the right distance from their host stars that make life on the planets possible, according to Space.com.
The statements came a day after the James Webb Space Telescope revealed pictures of a massive gas giant approximately 12 times the size of Jupiter. The telescope, which was created to detect and photograph the oldest stars in the galaxy, has aided in the research of exoplanets, including by detecting carbon dioxide and water in the atmosphere of some planets.
Even newer instruments than the James Webb telescope are being built, including a mid-infrared imager and spectrograph, or METIS, which will be part of the Extremely Large Telescope, or ELT, being built in Chile. The ELT will be completed toward the end of the decade and will feature a 130-foot-wide mirror. Quanz and his team are overseeing the METIS component.
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Additionally, the European Space Agency is in an early study phase for a mission called Large Interferometer for Exoplanets, or LIFE. The mission would look for molecules in the atmosphere of planets that could be created by living organisms, according to the outlet. The new center in Zurich is hoping to lay the groundwork for the mission, Quanz said.
“We need to gain deeper understanding about the plausible building blocks of life, the pathways and the timescales of chemical reactions and the external conditions to help us prioritize target stars and target planets,” Quanz said. “We need to verify to what extent the traces of life are true bioindicators, because maybe there are other processes that could lead to the creation of the gasses in these atmospheres.”
