NASA's New Space Camera Aims to Spot Alien Life on Distant Worlds

A team of scientists at Durham University is helping to create a new camera that could help search for life on planets far away from Earth. This camera will be part of NASA's Habitable Worlds Observatory, a telescope designed to look for Earth-like planets and study them for signs of life. The telescope will have large wing-like structures and solar panels, and the camera will be able to take very detailed pictures of distant planets. The UK team, which includes researchers from several universities and organizations, is working on making the camera as powerful as possible so it can help scientists make important discoveries about space.

Professor Richard Massey from Durham University said that the new technology could be as important as the Hubble Space Telescope was in the past. He believes that the camera and telescope will not only help look for life on other planets, but also watch asteroids collide, study black holes, and try to solve the mystery of dark matter. The Habitable Worlds Observatory is expected to launch in the early 2040s, and it will be the first telescope made specifically to find and study planets that are similar to Earth.

One of the biggest challenges in studying rocky planets like Earth is that they are very close to bright stars, which makes them hard to see. The new telescope will use a special instrument called a coronagraph to block out the bright light from stars, making it possible to see the planets more clearly. The camera will also be able to measure a planet's mass and look at its atmosphere to see if there are any chemicals that could mean there is life. The UK team working on the camera is led by University College London and includes scientists and engineers from the University of Portsmouth, RAL Space, the UK Astronomy Technology Centre, and Durham University. They are one of two groups funded by the UK Space Agency to study whether the UK can lead the development of this high-resolution camera. The other group is led by the University of Leicester.

This project is very exciting for scientists in the UK and around the world. If the camera and telescope work as planned, they could help answer some of the biggest questions about space and whether there is life on other planets. The work being done by the UK team could help make major discoveries and change the way we understand the universe.