Darwin (spacecraft)
These telescopes were to redirect light from distant stars and planets to a fourth spacecraft, which would have contained the beam combiner, spectrometers, and cameras for the interferometer array, and which would have also acted as a communications hub.According to a 2000 ESA bulletin, all spacecraft components in the optical path would have to be passively cooled to 40 kelvins to allow infrared observations to take place.Numerical simulations[citation needed] have shown that under proper conditions it is possible to build up an oxygen atmosphere via photolysis of carbon dioxide.[6] It orbits within the theoretical habitable zone of its star,[7] and scientists surmise that conditions on the planet might be conducive to supporting life.Antoine Labeyrie has proposed a much larger space-based astronomical interferometer similar to Darwin, but with the individual telescopes positioned in a spherical arrangement and with an emphasis on interferometric imaging.