SOTHE: SOlar-terrestrial habitability explorer
• The SOlar-Terrestrial Habitability Explorer (SOTHE) will carry 4 instruments conducting the first-ever simultaneous integrated spectra of the Sun and the Earth. SOTHE will explore the habitability of the Sun-Earth system and provide a unique baseline for habitable exoplanets exploration. Among more than 5000 exoplanets discovered up to now, around 60 are believed to be potentially habitable. The Sun-Earth system provides a unique example based on which detailed insights into the properties, formation, evolution, and thus habitability of exoplanets could be gained. However, simultaneous observation of the Sun as a star and the Earth as an exoplanet has been rare. In this paper, we introduce the SOlar-Terrestrial Habitability Explorer (SOTHE) to be deployed to the Sun-Earth L1 point. SOTHE will carry a science payload comprising four instruments to obtain the integrated spectra of the whole solar disk and the whole sunlit Earth at the same time, together with images of the Earth at 11 unique passbands from UV to NIR and the local plasma and magnetic field parameters at the L1 point. The core scientific goal of SOTHE is to understand key characteristics related to the habitability of the Sun-Earth system and provide a unique baseline for exploring habitable exoplanets, especially Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars.
Authors
- Hui Tian (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1369-1758)
- Bingkun Yu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2758-1960)
- Xianghui Xue (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4541-9900)
- Mengjiao Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2924-7520)
- Lixiang Gu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3089-3706)
- Fuchuan Pang
- Fei Yan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4606-251X)
- Siteng Fan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3041-4680)
- Jiajia Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2569-1840)
- Yiren Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8684-628X)
- Xin Ye (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2277-5328)
- Kai Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2573-1531)
- Bo Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3372-7762)
- Rui Li
- Weiren Wu
- Lingping He
- Ya-Juan Lei (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9510-3181)
- Dongdong Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0641-9975)
- Yu Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8159-8723)
- Yuming Wang
- Bo Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8908-8891)
Institutions
- University of Science and Technology of China (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Peking University (CN)
- Yunnan Observatories (CN)
- Southern University of Science and Technology (CN)
- Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics (CN)
- SpaceX (United States) (US)
- National Astronomical Observatories (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Advances in Space Research
- Published
- 2024-10-18
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asr.2024.10.024
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.33
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Chinese Academy of Sciences
- South University of Science and Technology of China