DARWIN mission proposal to ESA

Understand

The discovery of extra-solar planets is one of the greatest achievements of modern astronomy.

• There are now more than 200 such objects known, and the recent detection of planets with masses approximately 5 times that of Earth demonstrates that extra-solar planets of low mass exist.
• In addition to providing a wealth of scientific information on the formation and structure of planetary systems, these discoveries capture the interest of both scientists and the wider public with the profound prospect of the search for life in the Universe.
• We propose an L-type mission, called Darwin, whose primary goal is the study of terrestrial extrasolar planets and the search for life on them.