Searching for (Unintelligent) Life..
Kepler Mission: A Search for Habitable Planets (NASA)
This is a special purpose space mission for detecting extrasolar
terrestrial (Earth-size) planets. Launch date 2005. Mission goals include:
- Determine the frequency of terrestrial and larger planets in or near the
habitable zone of a wide variety of stars.
- Estimate the frequency and distributions of planets.
Darwin: Space Infrared Interferometer Project (ESA)
This is an array of 6 space telescopes, operating beyond the
asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter. The light from the
telescopes is combined at the central 'hub'. Using a
technique called nulling interferometry, the light from the
bright central star is canceled out, leaving only the faint light
from the planets.
Spectra taken in the thermal IR (microns) of the planets will be able to detect the tell-tale sign of life: Oxygen (in the form of ozone, O3) in the atmosphere at 10 microns. Launch date: 2015.