Wirt writes:

>Woolf has been tasked by Dan Goldin, the head of NASA, to find
>terrestrial-like planets. While it seems evident from our conversation that
>he considers the task next to impossible, it doesn't mean that he isn't
>giving it the old college try. ...
>they're trying to build are massively large,
>space-borne optical interferometers to see if they can observe and chemically
>characterize miniscule-sized planets' atmospheres in the midst of the
>enormous glare of the star they orbit.

An article in the September 25, 1998 issue of _Science_ (which *may* be
available online at
<http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/281/5385/1940>; _Science_ is
in the process of changing to a policy which makes content over 12 months
old freely available) describes the plans for some of these instruments,
and the stepping stones along the way. A recent European solar
observation mission whose name escapes me at the moment took one of these
steps in the last few months, demonstrating precision stationkeeping
among four free-flying spacecraft. This is a prerequisite for a
space-based optical interferometer large enough to detect planets
directly.

One of Dan Goldin's most arresting visions is a kindergarten classroom of
2025 with pictures of blue and cloudy planets on the walls -- planets
with strangely-shaped continents, circling other stars. Extrasolar
planets as places, not just Doppler shifts.

>While it's going to be a long time before we actually travel to the nearest
>stars (perhaps never), ...

And of course, there may not be any such worlds close enough to be
captured in resolved images. But if in 25 years, there are portraits of
other almost-Earths hanging in kindergarten classrooms, I have to doubt
"never". I wouldn't even be too sure about "a long time": it was just
under 66 years from Kitty Hawk to Tranquillity Base, and less than a
hundred to parachuting through the clouds of Jupiter.

-- Bruce


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