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In the latest addition to NASA's toolbox in its quest for habitable planets larger than Earth, called "super-Earths", is the satellite of study Transiting Exoplanet Survey (TESS). Launched in April 2018, its main goal is to scan the regions of the cosmos just outside our solar system to find planets capable of supporting life.
At the slightest sign of a potential that TESS discovers, NASA & # 39; s space observer – the telescope James Webb – saw more of a delay in its estimated launch. It has recently committed to being launched by the end of 2021 and will be NASA 's on – call eye to discover what TESS sees as an atmosphere of life.
What Webb and TESS Are Ready to Make
The Webb Telescope is a mix of studies that allow NASA to have a fresh overview of the space objects detected by TESS and to test the capabilities Webb's scientific instruments. As observing small exoplanets with thin atmospheres like the Earth will be a challenge for Webb, astronomers will initially target the gas exoplanets easier, according to an official statement.
The main struggle for the search for exoplanets is the light of a star. very bright, bright enough to drown a dim light from potentially habitable planets nearby. Until NASA better understood the exoplanets to overcome this challenge, its scientists armed their exoplanets project with a temporary solution.
The Webb telescope will be prepared to search for planets orbiting around red dwarf stars. are the smallest of stars weighing between 7.5 and 50% of the mbad of our sun. Since these red dwarfs are smaller and lighter through a telescope, astronomers believe that it could pull a signal from a planet orbiting a star with relative ease. Red dwarfs are also the most common stars in our galaxy, which improves the chances of locating an exoplanet in orbit that can support life.
An artistic rendition of the James Webb Space Telescope. Image courtesy: NASA
How the Webb Telescope Works
When a planet pbades in front of or crosses its star host, starlight is filtered through the atmosphere of the planet. The molecules present in the atmosphere absorb certain wavelengths or colors of light. By dividing starlight into a rainbow spectrum, astronomers can detect these sections of missing light and determine which molecules are in the atmosphere of the planet.
The project team has already targeted a prospect. WASP-79b A planet the size of Jupiter at about 780 light-years from Earth will be the first of many targets for the Webb telescope. The team that will study the telescope observation expects to find and quantify water, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide on WASP-79b. NASA also believes that it could harbor previously unknown molecules, which they consider to be a likely discovery in the exoplanet atmospheres.
"We have two main objectives, the first is to transfer Webb's exoplanet datasets to the astronomical community as soon as possible, and the second is to do great science for astronomers and the public. can see how powerful this observatory is, "said Jacob Bean, of the University of Chicago, co-principal investigator on the exoplanet project in transit.
Webb Telescope Astronomers ] intend to observe all the orbits of the exoplanets that it studies to map its temperature, its clouds and the chemical variations along its width, according to a NASA statement
Stars close to each other tend to be what scientists call "in the narrow." In such cases, one side of a planet is constantly facing the star of which it is in orbit, the aut the side facing outwards. This is related to the case of our Moon, whose hemisphere is still facing the Earth. In the case of planets magnetized with stars, any observer through a telescope would be the coldest face on the planet. On a longer observation, the planet will show more of its warmer surface, turned towards the day, orbiting the star.
"We have already seen dramatic and unexpected variations for WASP-79b with Hubble and Spitzer, and with Webb, we will reveal these variations in much more detail to understand the responsible physical processes," said Jacob Bean of the company. University of Chicago, currently co-principal investigator on the exoplanet project.
The long-term goals of the project [19659004] "TESS is expected to locate more than a dozen orbiting planets in habitable areas of red dwarfs, some of which could actually be habitable. We want to know if these planets have atmospheres and Webb will be the only one to tell us, "said Kevin Stevenson of the Space Telescope Science Institute, another co-principal investigator on the project.
He added," The results will go a long way towards answering the question of whether conditions favorable to life are common in our galaxy. "
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