text: At 4.2 light-years (1.3 parsecs, 40 trillion km, or 25 trillion miles) away from Earth, the closest potentially habitable exoplanet is Proxima Centauri b, which was discovered in 2016. This means it would take more than 18,100 years to get there if a vessel could consistently travel as fast as the Juno spacecraft (250,000 kilometers per hour or 150,000 miles per hour). It is currently not feasible to send humans or even probes to search for biosignatures outside of the Solar System. The only way to search for biosignatures outside of the Solar System is by observing exoplanets with telescopes.
  There have been no plausible or confirmed biosignature detections outside of the Solar System. Despite this, it is a rapidly growing field of research due to the prospects of the next generation of telescopes. The James Webb Space Telescope, which launched in December 2021, will be a promising next step in the search for biosignatures. Although its wavelength range and resolution will not be compatible with some of the more important atmospheric biosignature gas bands like oxygen, it will still be able to detect some evidence for oxygen false positive mechanisms.
  The new generation of ground-based 30-meter class telescopes (Thirty Meter Telescope and Extremely Large Telescope) will have the ability to take high-resolution spectra of exoplanet atmospheres at a variety of wavelengths. These telescopes will be capable of distinguishing some of the more difficult false positive mechanisms such as the abiotic buildup of oxygen via photolysis. In addition, their large collecting area will enable high angular resolution, making direct imaging studies more feasible.