Open Access
24 January 2022 EarthShine: Observing our world as an exoplanet from the surface of the Moon
Patricia T. Boyd, Emily L. Wilson, Alan P. Smale, Peter Supsinskas, Timothy A. Livengood, Tilak Hewagama, Geronimo L. Villanueva, Alexander Marshak, Nickolay A. Krotkov, Petr Pokorny, Jay V. Bixler, Jonathan D. Noland, Guru Ramu, Paul Cleveland, John Ganino, Murzy D. Jhabvala, Elisa V. Quintana, Emily Gilbert, Knicole D. Colón, Giada N. Arney, Shawn D. Domagal-Goldman, Avi M. Mandell, Tom Barclay, Marc J. Kuchner, Lesley Ott
Author Affiliations +
Abstract

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. EarthShine 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. EarthShine will answer interconnected questions in Earth and lunar science, exoplanets, and astrobiology, related to the credo “follow the water.” EarthShine 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 EarthShine 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.

CC BY: © The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.
Patricia T. Boyd, Emily L. Wilson, Alan P. Smale, Peter Supsinskas, Timothy A. Livengood, Tilak Hewagama, Geronimo L. Villanueva, Alexander Marshak, Nickolay A. Krotkov, Petr Pokorny, Jay V. Bixler, Jonathan D. Noland, Guru Ramu, Paul Cleveland, John Ganino, Murzy D. Jhabvala, Elisa V. Quintana, Emily Gilbert, Knicole D. Colón, Giada N. Arney, Shawn D. Domagal-Goldman, Avi M. Mandell, Tom Barclay, Marc J. Kuchner, and Lesley Ott "EarthShine: Observing our world as an exoplanet from the surface of the Moon," Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems 8(1), 014003 (24 January 2022). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JATIS.8.1.014003
Received: 10 May 2021; Accepted: 20 December 2021; Published: 24 January 2022
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CITATIONS
Cited by 3 scholarly publications.
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KEYWORDS
Exoplanets

Planets

Earth's atmosphere

Stars

Clouds

Spectroscopy

Sun

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