TPF will be able to search the habitable zones of stars located up to fifty light years away, analyzing the composition of planets’ atmospheres. It will look for gasses that signal the possibility of life, gasses such as oxygen, water vapor, methane, and carbon dioxide. And TPF will be capable of taking pictures that are one-hundred times more detailed than the photographs of the Hubble Space Telescope. Many astronomers are hopeful that these new telescopes will lead to a groundbreaking discovery of life elsewhere in the universe. Regardless of what discoveries they may yield, TPF and other space telescopes in development promise to bring exciting changes to space exploration.