Sasha Quanz, Professor of Astrophysics from ETH Zurich in Switzerland, revealed his new vision of space at the opening ceremony of the university’s newly opened Center for the Origin and Extent of Life.
“My goal is to find life outside the Solar System, and yes, that will be a huge challenge. I have 25 years to do that,” says Professor Quanz. Quanz continues by saying that the mission began in 1995 with the discovery of Dimidium, the first planet outside our Solar System. More than 5,000 exoplanets have been discovered in a short time since then, and we’re finding new ones almost every day.
“Statistically, every star is home to a planet, and many of these planets have similar dimensions to Earth,” Quanz said. “Many of them are far from the star, and the energy they get from the star is very similar to what Earth gets from the sun,” he says. But whether these planets have atmospheres and support life as we know it is still difficult to say.
Professor Quanz argues that a major breakthrough could come from the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) currently under construction in Chile’s Atacama Desert. When operational towards the end of this decade, the ELT will be significantly larger than the James Web Space Telescope with its 39-metre primary mirror. The telescope’s primary purpose will be to take the first picture of a potentially Earth-like terrestrial planet (outside our Solar System) around one of the closest stars.
Eventually, they hope to image dozens of exoplanets and gain an understanding of their atmospheres. Once a promising candidate has been identified, the European Space Agency may set up a mission to this exoplanet to take care of the rest.
Working with other disciplines, Quanz argues that the search for life beyond the Solar System could be successful in just 25 years.
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