Closing gaps to our origins. The UV window into the Universe

TL;DR

This paper advocates for a large ultraviolet space observatory to significantly advance our understanding of the origins of life in the Universe by providing unique data not accessible through other wavelengths.

Contribution

It proposes the development of a versatile UV space observatory with 50-100 times the sensitivity of current facilities to explore the emergence of life.

Findings

UV observations can reveal chemical enrichment in the Universe.

Large UV observatory will enable detection of amino acids in space.

Enhanced UV data will improve understanding of life's chemical pathways.

Abstract

The investigation of the emergence of life is a major endeavour of science. Astronomy is contributing to it in three fundamental manners: (1) by measuring the chemical enrichment of the Universe, (2) by investigating planet formation and searching for exoplanets with signatures of life and, (3) by determining the abundance of aminoacids and the chemical routes to aminoacid and protein growth in astronomical bodies. This proposal deals with the first two. In the Voyage to 2050, the world-wide scientific community is getting equipped with large facilities for the investigation of the emergence of life in the Universe (i.e. VLT, JWST, ELT, GMT, TMT, ALMA, FAST, VLA, ATHENA, SKA) including the ESA's CHEOPS, PLATO and ARIEL missions. This white paper is a community effort to call for the development of a large ultraviolet optical observatory to gather fundamental data for this investigation that will not be accessible through other ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum. A versatile space observatory with UV sensitivity a factor of 50-100 greater than existing facilities will revolutionize our understanding of the pathway to life in the Universe.