SPACE.com -- Future Missions to Search for Earth-like Planets


	Future Missions to Search for Earth-like Planets posted: 30 June 2005 07:56 am

Darwin mission

The European Space Agency has targeted the InfraRed Space Interferometer-Darwin for a launch in 2015 or later. Decisions about whether to go forward with the mission are expected around 2003.

The telescope, using infrared rather than optical wavelengths, would hunt for Earth-like planets around some 300 Sun-like stars within 50 light-years of Earth. Darwin would actually be an array of six small eyes, forming an effective giant that would mimic a 100-yard (91-meter) telescope.

Scientists are still studying how such a system might be designed.

Unlike current space-based telescopes, Darwin would operate somewhere between Mars and Jupiter, rather than in Earth orbit. This would allow the instruments to avoid the dust between Earth and Mars that obscures the view.

The six individual telescopes would be joined either by long arms or would each be mounted on individual spacecraft. In the former case, the rigid structure would rotate to build up the image. In the latter case, the individual spacecraft would have their own rocket motors and dance around each other to build up the image.

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