Darwin (spacecraft)

Darwin was the study of a planned for 2015 space experiment of the European Space Agency, Earth-like exoplanets and the watch should look for signs of life on them. It is named after Charles Darwin. As her namesake should the Darwin mission looking for the " origins of life ". The concept was based on a smaller amount of satellites that should together form a very large interferometer in space. This study was discontinued in 2007.

Details

Darwin was planned as a complex system of multiple satellites in precise formation flying. The early plans envisaged to eight satellites. After the last state of planning the mission should consist of four individual satellites. Three should each an infrared telescope of 3-4 m primary mirror diameter, similar to the Herschel Space Observatory wear. The signals from these telescopes should be combined for the observation of planets close to their much brighter central stars on the principle of nulling interferometer. This interference would be carried out on the central fourth satellite. To the distances of the satellites would have to be controlled to a fraction of the wavelength used accurately.

Darwin should for several reasons in the infrared region are working to 10 microns wavelength. In infrared light, the brightness difference between an Earth-like planet and its host star is smaller than the visible light, but the star is still about a million times brighter. In addition, can be searched by infrared spectroscopy in the atmosphere of planets discovered by gases such as oxygen (detection as ozone ), water vapor, carbon dioxide or methane. The occurrence of these gases in certain combinations are signs on to influence the atmosphere by living organisms.

Darwin had not opened before 2015 on the way to his operation point, the second Lagrange point ( L2) of the Sun-Earth system, because its new technologies should be tested only by LISA Pathfinder (formerly SMART -2). Darwin was planned in consultation with the Terrestrial Planet Finder now also set NASA.