Current Research Projects

Here you will find all projects and research interests of the current members of the Center for Space and Habitability (CSH). For an overview of our main research questions and how each project relates to those questions, check the Research Clusters page. Projects of former CSH members can be found in the archive at the end of the page.

This page is currently under construction. More information will be available soon.

Astrobiology, Spectropolarimetry

SenseLife | Demory, Grone, Fatton, Patty, Brandenburg, Schroffenegger

One of the most intriguing questions is whether life exists beyond Earth. To date, no direct evidence has been found, yet habitable conditions exist elsewhere in the Universe. SenseLife develops an advanced optical instrument, a full-Stokes spectropolarimeter called FlyPol. FlyPol analyzes the polarization state of light and searches for distinct polarization features produced by biological matter. In an interdisciplinary effort, we combine microbiology, optics, and engineering to search for microscopic life on planetary bodies within our Solar System.

Exoplanets

© ESA/ATG medialab

CHEOPS | Broeg, Fortier, Simon, Peel, Frey

CHEOPS is the first mission dedicated to search for transits of exoplanets by means of ultra-high precision photometry on bright stars already known to host planets. It provides the unique capability of determining accurate radii for a subset of those planets for which the mass has already been estimated from ground-based spectroscopic surveys, providing on-the-fly characterization of exoplanets located almost everywhere in the sky and therefore prime targets for future instruments suited to the spectroscopic characterization of exoplanetary atmospheres.