HABITABLE ZONES AROUND LOW-MASS STARS AND THE SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE

Habitable planets are likely to exist around stars not too different f rom the Sun if current theories about terrestrial climate evolution ar e correct. Some of these planets may have evolved life, and some of th e inhabited planets may have evolved O-2-rich atmospheres. Such atmosp heres could be detected spectroscopically on planets around nearby sta rs using a space-based interferometer to search for the 9.6 mu m band of O-3. Planets with O-2-rich atmospheres that lie within the habitabl e zone around their parent star are, in all probability, inhabited.