Technology development

Fig.1:Artist’s concept of the DARWIN flotilla (Image: ESA). (Click on image to enlarge)

Within their Advanced Payloads Program the European Space Agency (ESA) is funding the development of critical technologies to be employed in future space missions. One of the areas under study is the development of extrinsic semiconductor blocked impurity band (BIB) detectors, tailored to the needs of the DARWIN mission.

DARWIN would use a flotilla of up to six space telescopes that will operate together to scan the nearby Universe for earth-size planets and search for signs of life. The light of from the telescopes will be combined using a nulling interferometer, suppressing the huge signal of the central star that would otherwise outshine the planet by at least five orders of magnitude. This technique will allow astronomers not only to detect the light of the planet but also to obtain a spectrum of its atmosphere and search for water and oxygen.