The Search for Worlds Like Our Own
Journal article, 2010
The direct detection of Earth-like exoplanets orbiting nearby stars and the characterization of such planets particularly, their evolution, their atmospheres, and their ability to host life-constitute a significant problem. The quest for other worlds as abodes of life has been one of mankind's great questions for several millennia. For instance, as stated by Epicurus similar to 300 BC: "Other worlds, with plants and other living things, some of them similar and some of them different from ours, must exist.'' Demokritos from Abdera (460-370 BC), the man who invented the concept of indivisible small parts-atoms-also held the belief that other worlds exist around the stars and that some of these worlds may be inhabited by life-forms. The idea of the plurality of worlds and of life on them has since been held by scientists like Johannes Kepler and William Herschel, among many others. Here, one must also mention Giordano Bruno. Born in 1548, Bruno studied in France and came into contact with the teachings of Nicolas Copernicus. He wrote the book De l'Infinito, Universo e Mondi in 1584, in which he claimed that the Universe was infinite, that it contained an infinite amount of worlds like Earth, and that these worlds were inhabited by intelligent beings. At the time, this was extremely controversial, and eventually Bruno was arrested by the church and burned at the stake in Rome in 1600, as a heretic, for promoting this and other equally confrontational issues (though it is unclear exactly which idea was the one that ultimately brought him to his end). In all the aforementioned cases, the opinions and results were arrived at through reasoning-not by experiment. We have only recently acquired the technological capability to observe planets orbiting stars other than our Sun; acquisition of this capability has been a remarkable feat of our time. We show in this introduction to the Habitability Primer that mankind is at the dawning of an age when, by way of the scientific method and 21(st)-century technology, we will be able to answer this fascinating controversial issue that has persisted for at least 2500 years.
systems
mission
darwin
stars
project
nulling interferometer
Habitability
giant planets
extra-solar planets
Planet-detection methods
companion
disk
Terrestrial exoplanets
space
Bioastronomy
Author
M. Fridlund
European Space Agency (ESA)
C. Eiroa
Universidad Autonoma de Madrid (UAM)
T. Henning
Max Planck Society
T. Herbst
Max Planck Society
H. Lammer
Institut fur Weltraumforschung
A. Leger
University of Paris-Sud
René Liseau
Chalmers, Department of Radio and Space Science, Radio Astronomy and Astrophysics
F. Paresce
Istituto nazionale di astrofisica (INAF)
A. Penny
Royal Observatory
STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
A. Quirrenbach
Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory
H. Rottgering
Leiden University
F. Selsis
University of Bordeaux
G. J. White
STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Open University
O. Absil
Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Grenoble
University of Liège
D. Defrere
University of Liège
C. Hanot
University of Liège
D. Stam
Netherlands Institute for Space Research (SRON)
J. Schneider
Observatoire de Paris-Meudon
G. Tinetti
University College London (UCL)
A. Karlsson
European Space Agency (ESA)
P. Gondoin
European Space Agency (ESA)
R. den Hartog
European Space Agency (ESA)
L. D'Arcio
European Space Agency (ESA)
A. M. Stankov
European Space Agency (ESA)
M. Kilter
European Space Agency (ESA)
C. Erd
European Space Agency (ESA)
C. Beichman
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
D. Coulter
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
W. Danchi
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
M. Devirian
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
K. J. Johnston
US Naval Observatory
P. Lawson
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
O. P. Lay
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
J. Lunine
University of Arizona
L. Kaltenegger
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Astrobiology
1531-1074 (ISSN)
Vol. 10 1 5-17Subject Categories (SSIF 2011)
Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology
Roots
Basic sciences
DOI
10.1089/ast.2009.0380