NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory Aiming to Detect Alien Life on Earth Like Planets by 2050
NASA is gearing up to launch the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), a state-of-the-art telescope designed specifically to search for signs of extraterrestrial life on Earth-like planets. Scheduled to launch by 2040, HWO represents a monumental step in the quest to find habitable planets by 2050.
Dr. Jessie Christiansen, NASA’s chief scientist for the search for extraterrestrial life, has expressed optimism that HWO will detect signals from planets within the habitable zones of sun-like stars during our lifetime. The primary objective of the observatory is to identify biosignatures, which are indicators of life, such as biogenic gases, aerosols, surface biosignatures, and even technosignatures from advanced civilizations.
To date, NASA has pinpointed twenty-five Earth-like planets or...