Table-Comparison (IMAGE)
Caption
Comparison of the derived fraction of Earth-like planets with detectable biosignatures as a function of the number of observed planets for two mission concepts: the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO, left panel) and the Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE, right panel). The solid black curve indicates the best-fit observed fraction assuming all detections are negative, while the black arrows represent the 99.9% confidence/belief upper limit we would be able to derive. Vertical lines and shaded regions highlight predictions of the yields for these future concepts from recent studies: Morgan et al. 2022 for H2O and O2 searches with HWO (blue and green, left), and Kammerer et al. 2023 for LIFE biosignature searches (orange and yellow, right). If for example HWO cannot find water on any of 20 planets we could be 99.9% sure that the fraction of planets with water is less than 0.25, similarly if LIFE cannot detect life on any of the 18 planets in its average sample, we can be 99.9% sure that the fraction of planets with life is smaller than 0.3.
Credit
Angerhausen et al.
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