Spending 650 million USD to find extraterrestrial life

British scientists say they will host a $ 650 million program to look for the chemical signs of life on planets that orbit the distant stars, according to The Independent.

The research team at the Royal College of London will " stand in the air" in the mission called Observation of the Extrasolar Planets (EchO) feature sponsored by the European Space Agency (ESA). Experts will use a new space telescope to find biomarkers in the atmosphere of distant planets.

There are still many mysteries about life outside the earth.

They will try to find chemical molecules that can signal the presence of life.

'One of the key goals in our mission is to detect chemical molecules such as ozone and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of planets of the same size as the earth', said the team leader. Giovanni Tinetti said. ' These molecules are important biomarkers, suggesting that life may or may not exist .'

Mission EchO will focus on earth-like planets in the livable area of ​​sun-like stars, commonly known as the " Goldilocks region ", which means that the region is neither too hot nor too cold, helping Life can be present.

EchO Space Telescope is expected to be put into use in the period from 2020 to 2022.

ESA's decision to sponsor the mission follows the key discoveries of the Kepler Space Telescope of the US Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Earlier this month, scientists working with Kepler said there were a total of 1,235 planetary "candidates" (ie planetary objects) flying around the orbits of stars outside the solar system. , including 54 planets in the ' Goldilocks ' zone and 5 of them are about the size of the earth.