Exploring Exoplanets with Interferometry

(Extract from the Executive Summary) Humanity stands at the threshold of answering one of its most profound questions: Does life exist beyond Earth?

Ongoing and upcoming space missions, together with powerful ground-based instruments, have prepared the way for a transformational next step – the detailed characterization of Earth analogs orbiting Sun-like and other stars and the search for atmospheric biosignatures that may indicate life.

Within this context, the European Space Agency’s Voyage 2050 process has identified the direct detection of thermal emission from temperate terrestrial exoplanets in the mid-infrared (mid-IR) as a top scientific priority. The Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE) – a space-based, mid-IR nulling interferometer – is designed to meet this goal. LIFE will be capable of detecting climate-relevant gases such as CO₂ and H₂O, identifying classical biosignatures like O₃ and CH₄, and probing additional, non-classical biosignatures.

It will also provide key data for determining planetary radius, albedo, and temperature, which are essential for assessing habitability. In parallel, the U.S. National Academy has recommended a complementary mission now called the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) – a ~6-meter space telescope equipped with advanced coronagraphs to suppress starlight by a factor of ~1010 across the visible and possibly into the near-infrared and near-ultraviolet.

Together, LIFE and HWO offer synergistic capabilities, enabling a comprehensive and robust assessment of the prevalence of life-bearing exoplanets in our galactic neighbourhood – a first in human history. By uniting an international and interdisciplinary community of scientists and engineers, LIFE offers a credible pathway toward the direct detection and characterization of potentially habitable – and even inhabited – worlds.

Sascha P. Quanz, Bertrand Mennesson, Charles Beichman, Jonah T. Hansen, Felix A. Dannert, Andrea Fortier, Michael Ireland, Nicholas Beltsten, Eleonora Alei, Leonid Pogorelyuk, William O. Balmer, Denis Defrère, Gautam Vasisht, Malcolm Fridlund, Romain Laugier, Tiffany Kataria, Eugene Serabyn, Steve Ertel, Hélène Rousseau, Kevin Wagner, Rhonda Morgan, Gerard T. van Belle, Gail H. Schaefer, Jean-Philippe Berger, Taro Matsuo, Ewan Douglas, John D. Monnier, Adrian M. Glauser, Dimitri Mawet, Michael R. Meyer

Comments: KISS (Keck Institute for Space Studies) Workshop Study Report; Study Leads: S.P. Quanz, B. Mennesson, C. Beichmann; Participant/co-author list in arbitrary order
Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Instrumentation and Detectors (physics.ins-det)
Cite as: arXiv:2606.10108 [astro-ph.IM] (or arXiv:2606.10108v1 [astro-ph.IM] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2606.10108
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Related DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26206/fhtk0-75f72
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Submission history
From: Sascha P. Quanz
[v1] Mon, 8 Jun 2026 19:38:15 UTC (2,960 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.10108

Astrobiology, Astrochemistry, Exoplanet,