The LUVOIR Telescope Concepts: Telling the Story of Life in the Universe
Abstract
Are we alone? What diversity of worlds exists beyond our Solar System? How can that diversity enhance our understanding of the planetary processes in our Solar System? How did the Universe lead to the creation of this diversity of worlds?
These are questions that can be answered by LUVOIR - the Large UV/Optical/Infrared Surveyor. LUVOIR is a concept for a powerful observatory in the tradition of the Hubble Space Telescope, spanning the far-UV to the near-infrared, and would enable revolutionary advances in our understanding of exoplanet science, planetary science, and astrophysics. LUVOIR will create a great leap in exoplanet science, with direct images and spectra of rocky Earth-sized exoplanets in the habitable zones of other stars. These data will allow a wide range of investigations, including analysis of rocky planet atmospheres and their surfaces, discovery of potentially habitable exoplanets, and a search for global biospheres. A key goal for LUVOIR is to conduct these studies on a large sample of potentially habitable exoplanets to constrain the frequency of habitable conditions. Enabling this requires a large-aperture space telescope, and the LUVOIR team has studied two variants: LUVOIR-A (15-m mirror) and LUVOIR-B (8-m mirror). The large aperture of LUVOIR would also enable groundbreaking observations of the Solar System with sensitive, high spatial resolution remote sensing over long time baselines and a broad wavelength range. This will enable observations of the chemistry, mineralogy, and weather of a variety of targets, with quality approaching that of a fly-by mission but over a much longer (5+ years) monitoring timeline. LUVOIR-A will resolve features as small as 25 km at Jupiter and 232 km at 40 AU. We will review LUVOIR's ability to conduct exoplanet and Solar System observations. This includes a search for "Earth-like" worlds that will also deliver high-quality observations of a wide variety of non-habitable exoplanets, ushering in a revolution in our understanding of planet formation, evolution, and comparative planetology. We will showcase some examples of LUVOIR Solar System remote sensing, review the observatory designs, and describe the concept study process that has led to the LUVOIR concept.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFM.P52A..02D
- Keywords:
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- 5215 Origin of life;
- PLANETARY SCIENCES: ASTROBIOLOGY;
- 5494 Instruments and techniques;
- PLANETARY SCIENCES: SOLID SURFACE PLANETS