About

ExoWorlds Spies is a project aiming to monitor exoplanets through regular observations and finally help the effort of characterizing these unknown worlds.  Exoplanets are planets orbiting stars beyond our Solar System. Due to the long distance, we cannot observe their atmospheres and their compositions directly, important elements which will help us better understand their nature. For this reason, bigger space missions will focus on studying them in the future. Today, despite the large number of discovered exoplanets, we know very little about them. We need to “spy” (observe on a regular basis) exoplanets and get to know them better so as to prepare these future space missions.  In the context of our project, the public is collaborating with scientists, astronomers and educators in order to produce scientific results.

Understanding worlds beyond the Earth is a key issue for humanity and concerns everyone, not only scientists.

We would like to collaborate with you and help towards answering fundamental questions of science and society:

Are there other planets like the Earth?

Could they host life?

Is there any other type of life?

This artist’s impression shows the super-Earth       Artist’s impression of a transiting hot jupiter.

55 Cancri e in front of its parent star.                   Credit: NASA/ESA, G.Bacon

Credit: ESA/Hubble, M. Kornmesse