Europe approves deep space mission to hunt for alien life
European Space Agency (ESA) has given the green light to PLATO, a $668-million deep-space mission to discover habitable Earth-sized planets in other solar systems and detect extra-terrestrial life the planets may host. The mission will be launched into the 'L2' virtual point in space, which lies 1.5 million kilometres beyond the Earth, on being observed from the Sun.