EarthShine: Observing Our World as an Exoplanet from the Surface of the Moon

NASA’s return to the Moon coincides with explosive growth in exoplanet discovery. Missions are being formulated to search for habitable planets orbiting other stars, making this the ideal time to deploy an instrument suite to the lunar surface to help us recognize a habitable exoplanet when we see it.

We present EarthShine, a technically mature, three-instrument suite to observe the whole Earth from the Moon as an exoplanet proxy. Earth Shine data will validate and improve models critical for designing missions to image and characterize exoplanets, thus informing observing strategies for flagship missions to directly image exoplanets.

The power of EarthShine. Observations would begin at day 0, viewing the waning gibbous Earth at dusk. Lunar noon, day 7, views the “new Earth” at mission mid-point. The payload would go dormant near day 14, with a waxing gibbous Earth at dawn. By comparison, DSCOVR can view only “full Earth,” while EPOXI viewed only a modest range of phase angle on the dawn side. — NASA NTRS

EarthShine will answer interconnected questions in Earth and lunar science, exoplanets, and astrobiology, related to the credo“ follow the water.” Earth Shine can take advantage of current NASA programs to conduct science from the Moon with low-cost, mature space hardware to reduce risk and assure success.

Like the 1968 Apollo Earthrise image of our home planet, lonely in the black sky, the appeal of Earth Shine to a multidisciplinary array of researchers in Earth Science, Planetary Science, and astrophysics will maximize both its scientific impact and its impact on the general public.

EarthShine: Observing Our World as an Exoplanet from the Surface of the Moon, NASA NTRS

Astrobiology,