A MISSION to find nearby alien planets to search for signs of life is a step closer to lift-off.
While NASA’s Kepler space telescope is already looking for Earth-sized planets (91av, 7 February 2009, p 8), most of the worlds it finds will be too distant for their spectra to be scanned for oxygen or other hints of life.
The proposed space telescope, called , would use the same method as Kepler and watch for the brief dimming as a planet passes in front of its star. But PLATO would focus on systems close enough to scan for bio-signatures. “PLATO potentially will get us targets,” says Jonathan Lunine of the University of Arizona in Tucson.
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“The PLATO space telescope would look for star systems close enough to scan for bio-signatures”
The European Space Agency announced last week that PLATO is now vying for two launch slots from the agency. Its competitors are , a space telescope that would measure dark energy and dark matter, and , which would observe the sun from an orbit approaching closer than Mercury’s. The winners could fly as early as 2017.
