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

The search for life on exoplanets relies on targeting a distant world and observing gases like methane and water vapor from the planet as a whole - gases that would indicate a habitable environment and perhaps microbial activity. Earthshine is an “Earth-as-exoplanet” mission, with two instruments to be deployed on the lunar surface: a wide-field optical camera (WF-OC) for low resolution spectroscopy and imaging, and a ready-to-fly gas sensor to measure gases in the Earth's atmospheric column, to gather data at a variety of Sun-Earth orientations over a long baseline, compare to models, and inform future approaches to characterize potentially habitable exoplanets.

By considering the Earth as an exoplanet, both in “transit” and reflected light, and comparing with simultaneous “ground truth” from orbiting NASA heliophysics and Earth science missions, we can tease out features in the “exoEarth” spectral signature from environmental drivers unrelated to life. Once this instrumentation is deployed on the lunar surface, the data products would inform exoplanet observing strategies for future missions, focused on searches for habitable environments.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 5) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.