A new interdisciplinary research program from NASA called NExSS (Nexus for Exoplanet System Science) brings together an interdisciplinary team of scientists at ten universities, three NASA centers, and two research institutes to devise new technologies and techniques for detecting life on exoplanets (planets around other stars).

The program brings together planetary scientists, Earth scientists, heliophysicists, and astronomers to identify and search for biosignatures, or signs of life and to explore how the parent stars and neighboring planets might interact to support life.

NASA’s Kepler space telescope has detected more than 1,000 exoplanets in the past six years. GPI, a new instrument for the Gemini Observatory, began its exoplanet survey in November 2014. Most exoplanets are detected through the Doppler technique — measuring the “wobble” of the parent star as an unseen planet’s gravity tugs on it — or though detection of a transit, as the planet’s orbit brings it between the star and Earth.

The challenge: detecting reflected light from exoplanets

As the newest generation of instruments for imaging exoplanets, GPI blocks out the bright star to directly see the faint planet next door. GPI has already imaged two previously known exoplanets and disks of planetary debris orbiting young stars where planets recently formed.

The first image of an Earth-size exoplanet is still likely years away. GPI is currently only sensitive enough to detect infrared emission from hot, bright planets the size of Jupiter. Detecting the faint, reflected light of cooler, smaller planets will require next-generation technologies and techniques. According to Bruce Macintosh, a professor of physics at Stanford and the principal investigator for the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI). this capability will be developed via instruments like GPI for eventual use on future planet-finding missions such as NASA’s Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST).

The project is led by James Graham, a professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley. “If you could see reflected light, you might be able to see the signature of life,” said Paul Kalas, an adjunct professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley and co-primary investigator for the project. “We are just now sowing the seeds to get to that point.”